It isn’t often that Hunter Brown lasts only three innings. An uncharacteristic start for the 2025 AL Cy Young finalist, with the Blue Jays forcing Brown to throw 85 pitches and generate only nine outs. In fact, this game was Brown’s shortest start since that infamous April 11, 2024 game against the Royals, when he allowed nine earned runs in 0.2 innings.
At least this time around, Brown avoided that dreaded crooked number, with Toronto only able to score one run against him. That’s much better than allowing nine. It was clearly an off night for the right-hander, but escaping with a 1-1 tie after three frames wasn’t the end of the world. It could be worse. This pitching staff has already subjected us to the inexplicable numerous times already. However, this development left the bullpen in charge of finishing the game. With the Astros on the front end of a 13-game in 13-day stretch, it isn’t optimal to have your ace only last three innings.
The bullpen actually managed to avoid a so-called big inning this time around, although they did spring the occasional leak. AJ Blubaugh allowed a run in his two innings. Bryan King allowed a sac fly to Myles Straw, allowing a run to be assigned to Enyel De Los Santos. Logan VanWey coughed up a run on three hits. Considering how this game unfolded, limiting the Blue Jays to four runs felt sufficient to secure a win.
Alas, the lineup had other ideas.
The Astros’ best chance to open the floodgates was probably in the first inning, with Dylan Cease allowing an early run and facing a bases-loaded situation with one out. With a pitcher like Cease on the ropes early, it felt imperative that Houston capitalized on the moment. Unfortunately for you and them, Yainer Diaz was hitting, and you can guess what happened next: a groundball double play to end the threat.
Yeah, I wasn’t surprised.
Houston would eventually score a second run, thanks to Jose Altuve’s RBI single that drove Cease out of the game, but there was little of anything else. Various opportunities here and there, with little follow-through. Not scoring more than one run in the first inning felt consequential then and ultimately proved accurate. The end result is a 4-2 loss. Such is life in 2026 for these Astros.
Feature photo from Astros on X
The game I watched. Hunter was incredibly unlucky or the Blue Jays incredibly lucky. Many soft singles and one HR. That’s all the Jays could do to Hunter.
The Astros couldn’t put together many 4 hits innings, therefore, they scored two runs.
That’s true but in the third inning, something seemed off on his delivery. He was having difficulty getting it over the plate in a way he didn’t earlier. I’m not sure if it was just too many pitches that inning too quickly with the pitch count. Or if the comebacker bothered him but he’s your ace, you gotta be protective of him especially, particularly when he went on the IL at the start of the season not long after he was left in to throw 105 pitches in a season opener. They should have gotten someone up earlier even if it was just Van Wey so that if hunters all right and you didn’t need Van Wey, he could probably handle the warm up and sit down.