The Launch Angle

In Tatsuya Imai’s last start against the Royals, when handed a nine-run lead before even throwing a pitch, he didn’t even last an entire inning. Nope, he only generated two outs before being removed from the game, allowing five earned runs in the process. It was one of the worst starts that I’ve seen in a while.

Control, or lack thereof, is Imai’s biggest weakness at the moment. More often than not, he cannot find the strike zone. If a pitcher can’t throw strikes, especially with their fastball, then opposing hitters aren’t going to be fooled by the breaking or offspeed stuff. The other problem, at least to me, is the lack of a reliable third pitch to help bridge the gap between his four-seam fastball and slider. Below are the three pitches he has thrown the most this season, with his slider (44%) and four-seam (43%) leading the way. That “sinker” you see on the graph below, or, rather his four-seam with a different grip? Yeah, he’s thrown it about 9% of the time.

Combine those two issues together, as was the case against Kansas City, and you end up with a disaster of a performance. That said, we’ve seen flashes of improvement in Imai’s control, albeit it’s inconsistent at best. I really like his slider and what he can do with it, but he needs a fastball he can throw for strikes. Against the Guardians on Friday evening, we saw what can happen when that control is present.

It is interesting to note that Imai did increase his changeup usage, using it 15% of the time compared to 2% on the season. But, as one can gather from the visual above, Imai couldn’t control it all that well. To his credit, though, he did pick up four whiffs on five swings with that changeup, so that counts for something. Thankfully, Imai’s four-seam and slider combination was mostly effective, with the latter generating 14 whiffs on 25 swings. The fact that he avoided issuing a single walk while striking out 11 is a much-needed positive development for a pitcher and team desperate for one. Of course, it is one thing to do it once or even twice. For Imai, however, can he make this a consistent trend? That’s the biggest test in front of Imai.

Although Cleveland’s three-run third inning left us all feeling anxious, the Astros did a fairly good job of responding when required. Seven of the nine runs were driven in by either Jeremy Peña and Jose Altuve, with both hitting home runs. Peña, in fact, hit two home runs in this game, with Altuve’s three-run blast in the sixth putting Houston ahead for good in this game.

Of the Astros’ nine runs, a combined seven scored in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings. A 9-3 lead in the ninth actually let us see Mike Burrows as a reliever. While the original plan might’ve been to let Burrows relieve Imai if the former ran into trouble, Imai’s performance made that moot. Regardless, it was likely that we would see Burrows in some capacity this evening.

Now 36-41, Houston only trails the Mariners by 3.5 games at the time of this recap. A loss to the Red Sox would move the Astros to only three games behind the AL West division leader. While a losing record still isn’t good, this team is taking steps in the right direction. Considering how weak the division and the AL as a whole are this year, Houston could remain in the running for a postseason berth if everything mostly breaks right for them this summer. A big ask, especially for a team without a large margin of error. But, hey, it is still better than what happened in April.

Feature photo from Astros on X