HOUSTON — The Houston Astros awoke on Friday morning with baseball’s lowest OPS. A 14-run outburst against the Los Angeles Angels increased it by 38 points, illustrating the folly in freaking out over such minuscule samples early in a baseball season.
Fifteen games is nowhere near enough to draw grand conclusions. Houston sits a game under .500, but still in a far better position than last year, when it spiraled to a 7-19 start that almost destroyed the season.
Here are 15 numbers that have defined the Astros’ first 15 games.
Houston’s lineup’s 3.92 pitches per plate appearance
The Astros’ reimagined lineup is reversing a troubling trend that helped to derail their 2024 season. No offense in the sport saw fewer pitches per plate appearance last season than Houston’s 3.65. Adding both Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker this winter has helped to alleviate the problem, but slugger Yordan Alvarez — who saw 3.56 pitches per plate appearance last season — is seeing 4.20 after 15 games. Perhaps as a result, Houston has already walked 60 times in 15 games.
Christian Walker’s 31.5 percent chase rate
Walker has acknowledged feeling at least some pressure to perform in the first season of a three-year, $60 million contract, so an elevated chase rate shouldn’t be surprising. That it is almost six percent above his career average helps to explain a 31.7 percent strikeout rate that is higher than anything he posted in any of his past full seasons. Walker didn’t draw his first walk until his 47th plate appearance as an Astro and, last week, lamented some of his swing decisions more than the dismal results as a whole. Walker exited Sunday’s game slashing .164/.281/.236.
Jeremy Peña’s 32.5 percent line-drive rate
Now in the third season of his quest to elevate the baseball, Peña is starting to see results. The 32.5 percent line-drive rate on Peña’s first 40 batted balls this season is nine points above his career average. Peña’s 37.5 percent ground-ball rate is 13 points lower than the 50 percent clip he posted last season. Peña started an offensive overhaul last season, quieting his batting stance and eliminating the bat wiggle in his pre-pitch setup.
Hunter Brown’s 97.3 mph average four-seam fastball velocity
Hunter Brown has a 2.00 ERA and 0.78 WHIP through his first three starts. (David Berding / Getty Images)
After an offseason focused on increasing his flexibility and mobility, Brown has bumped his fastball velocity by 1.3 mph. Only four major-league starters entered Sunday throwing a harder four-seamer than Brown, who has already thrown five fastballs at or above 99 mph. He had seven such pitches during his first three seasons in the major leagues. Whether Brown can maintain this velocity across a six-month season is a legitimate question, but he tailored his offseason for it.
A 46.6 percent ground-ball rate
So much ground-ball contact is problematic for one of the sport’s oldest and slowest offenses. Only six teams entered the weekend averaging a lower sprint speed than the 26.6 feet per second covered by Astros hitters. Among them, only the Tampa Bay Rays had a higher ground-ball rate than Houston. Walker, Jose Altuve, Brendan Rodgers and Jake Meyers all have at least a 50 percent ground-ball rate. Meyers is the fastest man on the team, but none of the other three will set sprint records anytime soon. Walker and Altuve are paid to slug, too, signaling the root cause of Houston’s offensive malaise.
23.8 percent sinkers and 27.8 percent four-seamers
No lineup in the sport has seen a higher percentage of sinkers than the Astros. Only two have seen fewer four-seam fastballs, factors that must be considered when analyzing the club’s contact quality. Having an almost all right-handed lineup leaves Houston somewhat vulnerable to sinkers, but the Astros did enter Sunday hitting .314 against them. What was the average launch angle of that contact? Four degrees — understandable against pitches that are designed to be driven into the ground. Thirty of the Astros’ first 37 hits against sinkers have been singles.
Houston entered Sunday slugging .257 against the few four-seamers it saw, the third-lowest mark in the sport behind the Twins and the White Sox.
A 29.9 percent whiff rate and 166 strikeouts by the Astros’ pitching staff
Both numbers are the best in baseball, reinforcing what seemed so evident in spring training: This team will travel as far as its pitching staff can take it.
Opponents are 18-for-19 stealing bases
Kyren Paris steals second base against the Astros on April 12. (Leslie Plaza Johnson / Icon Sportswire via Associated Press)
Houston can’t control the running game, a problem that plagued its pitching staff last season and has perturbed manager Joe Espada at the beginning of this one. Astros pitchers struggle to vary their times to home plate, putting both Yainer Diaz and Victor Caratini in an almost impossible position. Caratini and Diaz aren’t blameless, either — it’s an all-encompassing problem that the Astros must address before the teeth of their season begins.
54 plate appearances against left-handed pitching
No lineup has taken fewer plate appearances against left-handers than the Astros. After seeing 13 consecutive right-handed starters to begin the season, the Astros finally faced a southpaw starter on Saturday and saw lefty reliever Reid Detmers for two innings on Sunday. Houston has two healthy left-handed hitters on its 40-man roster, one of whom is third catcher César Salazar stowed away at Triple-A Sugar Land. The other is Alvarez, who hits left-handed pitching almost as well as righties. Without any semblance of balance, opposing clubs could benefit from tailoring their rotations to feature all right-handed starters against a Houston team unable to counter.
A .042 batting average against Framber Valdez’s curveball
Seventeen of Valdez’s 21 strikeouts this season have come against his curveball, a pitch on which opponents are just 1-for-24. Valdez has generated a 47.8 percent whiff rate on the 99 curveballs he’s thrown — compensating for another curious trend early in his season. Valdez’s sinker is generating just a 46.1 percent ground-ball rate across three starts, down from 58.4 percent last season. Valdez has elevated the pitch far too much, making it easier to lift for line-drive hits and making him rely on a curveball no opponent can touch.
Zach Dezenzo’s 15 plate appearances
Espada seemed adamant in spring training that neither Dezenzo nor Cam Smith would make the Opening Day roster unless they received regular playing time. Carrying both of them presented a predicament this coaching staff hasn’t been able to solve. Smith is the team’s everyday right fielder, but Dezenzo has started just four times across 15 games. He has nowhere near Smith’s prospect cache, but Dezenzo is still among the most intriguing young players in an otherwise barren farm system. If the major-league coaching staff can’t discover ways to get him more involved, the Astros would be better served sending him to Triple-A Sugar Land, where he can continue his development with everyday at-bats.
$4,913,522 under the first luxury tax threshold
Offloading some of Rafael Montero’s bloated contract to the Atlanta Braves gave the Astros breathing room under a luxury tax threshold owner Jim Crane doesn’t seem willing to cross. Though Crane didn’t answer on Opening Day whether he gave an edict to stay under the tax, everything his baseball operations department has done suggests it is a priority. The club dumped most of Ryan Pressly’s $8.5 million salary in a trade with the Chicago Cubs in January before executing the Montero deal last week — one general manager Dana Brown acknowledged had financial motivations. Now, Brown may be free to explore potential in-season additions at the trade deadline, should Houston still be in contention.
Jose Altuve’s 17 chances in left field
Intrigue has surrounded almost all of Altuve’s starts in left field, but the relative lack of action he’s received accentuated why the Astros moved him there in the first place. Altuve entered Sunday’s game with 17 total chances, the third-fewest among 21 left fielders with at least 80 innings played. That afternoon, Altuve caught four fly balls against the Angels that will skew the statistics, but it still underscores Houston’s rationale. Altuve is at a defensive position with far less potential to impact the game, especially with a pitching staff that piles up groundballs.
(Top photo of Jeremy Peña hitting a single against the Mariners on April 9: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)