HOUSTON — Not for 56 years had a pitching staff supplied dominance like the Houston Astros did in August. Across 28 games, it posted a 2.51 ERA, struck out 291 batters and limited opponents to a .185 batting average — the lowest in any month since the Cleveland Indians held hitters to a .174 mark in May 1968.
Houston has morphed into a run prevention monolith, the type of team that is downright deadly in October and can skirt by with a suspect offense. The Astros scored fewer than four runs in half of their 28 August games but still finished 18-10, the byproduct of a dominant pitching staff that has authored a total turnaround from April.
Sweeping the resurgent Kansas City Royals this weekend left Houston a season-high 13 games above .500. Here are three takeaways from their path there.
He’ll never acknowledge it outright, but Dana Brown heard the noise. The boldest move of his brief Astros tenure spurred the sort of outsized outcry that’s hard to ignore. Yusei Kikuchi arrived in Houston with some awful counting stats and at a hefty price: three charismatic, well-covered prospects from an already-barren farm system.
No trade can be judged in the hours after it is consummated. Rendering a verdict a month later is just as silly. Still, Kikuchi’s first six starts have silenced many who spazzed out upon hearing the news of his acquisition for Jake Bloss, Joey Loperfido and Will Wagner.
“I do feel good that every start he’s pitched in, we’ve won,” Brown said before Kikuchi’s outing on Saturday. “That means he’s at least given us a chance to win, which is what we needed at the time.”
Kikuchi has a 2.57 ERA across his first 35 innings as an Astro. Houston has won all six games he’s started, including a 5-2 victory against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday night. Kikuchi finished six innings for the first time as an Astro and fell one strikeout shy of matching his season high.
Kikuchi struggled during his first seasons in both Seattle and Toronto, inviting at least some skepticism about how he’d adjust to a midseason change in both clubhouse and championship stakes. That the Astros didn’t ask him to overhaul his entire arsenal has helped.
“What was most important was just continuing to use the stuff that I have,” Kikuchi said through an interpreter. “The coaching staff here, they wanted to use what I already had and just make adjustments based off that — whether that’s pitch mix or location of the different pitches. Being able to hear what they had to say and suggest is paying dividends.”
Kikuchi is throwing fewer curveballs and more changeups while using his slider in more back-foot and back-door locations, almost turning it into two separate offerings. The Astros told him to emphasize elevating his four-seam fastball and, at times, he has sacrificed some of his high velocity for more precise command.
More than anything, Kikuchi has afforded stability to a rotation that had little to speak of. The club was counting on Bloss, whom Brown now acknowledges “probably wasn’t quite ready” to pitch in the major leagues, along with Spencer Arrighetti and Ronel Blanco, each of whom were approaching career-high workloads.
Even if Bloss, Loperfido and Wagner all blossom into impact big leaguers, Kikuchi helping in Houston’s pursuit of another American League pennant will make the trade a success. He has already positioned himself to be part of the Astros’ playoff rotation. Succeed there and Brown’s move will be showered with praise.
“We have to keep it up,” Brown said. “We hope the final report card is good. So far, we’re getting some good grades, but we hope the final report card is good.”
Waiver claims are a group effort within Brown’s front office. The Astros have already made seven across this star-crossed season, a response to their spate of pitching injuries and outfield underperformance.
Houston’s most recent addition may be its most meaningful. Journeyman Ben Gamel has gone from another anonymous outfielder to a middle-of-the-order bat for an offense searching anywhere for a spark.
Gamel has started 10 of the Astros’ 11 games since they claimed him off waivers from the New York Mets. He has hit as high as fifth in Houston’s batting order — both an indictment of the team’s depth and an illustration of the impact Gamel has made.
Ben Gamel celebrates after hitting a solo homer against the Royals on Aug. 30. (Jack Gorman / Getty Images)
The 32-year-old is 12-for-36 with three extra-base hits, offering a momentary boost to an outfield in need of it. Gamel’s playing time will probably be slashed upon Kyle Tucker’s imminent return, but what he contributed during this grueling stretch can’t be overlooked.
Gamel had taken just 30 major-league plate appearances before the Astros claimed him last week. He did have a .962 OPS for the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate in Syracuse, but if Houston’s outfield carousel has demonstrated anything, it’s to not put much stock in minor-league numbers.
To claim Gamel, Houston followed a formulaic process Brown has instituted. Senior director of player personnel Matt Hogan, one of the longest-tenured members of the Astros’ front office, compiled a list of candidates for Brown to “put my scouting eye on.” Hogan and his team analyze their underlying metrics. How early Gamel loads in his swing immediately caught Brown’s attention.
“I thought he could hit the fastball,” Brown said.
Gamel is a career .299 hitter against fastballs and nine of his 12 hits as an Astro have come against a fastball. Opponents will adjust and throw him an assortment of secondary pitches, something Brown has warned Gamel he must lay off.
“They throw him a lot of junk. I said, ‘Look, you just have to learn to lay off that off-speed and you’ll get more fastballs to hit.’ It was (the) left-handed (bat) at first — we needed some of that — and it was his ability to potentially get to a lot of fastballs, which he’s been doing pretty well.”
Chas McCormick’s demotion to Triple-A Sugar Land on Wednesday seemed overdue. He had spiraled into a funk that sporadic at-bats weren’t going to correct. That Houston had exhausted all of its other available outfield options at the minor-league level became McCormick’s only saving grace.
Signing Jason Heyward signaled the end of McCormick’s malaise. He slashed .192/.256/.292 and struck out 70 times across 243 plate appearances. McCormick’s final at-bat in the major leagues showed so much of what he lacked all season, some of his trademark opposite-field pop for a two-run homer against his hometown Philadelphia Phillies.
“The main thing is for him to get confidence back,” Brown said. “We told him, ‘Go down there, try to lock into what you were doing last year. You’re going down on a positive note. You hit that home run the other night, that’s all positive.’
“He understood. He understood why we did what we did.”
McCormick will make a brief cameo with the major-league team in Cincinnati this week while Jake Meyers is on the paternity list, but it’s difficult to see him having any more runway than that. The team sent him to Triple A to get everyday at-bats and work through his woes.
At the time of his demotion, McCormick said he would prepare himself to return after the requisite 10 days he must spend in the minors. Whether that will be reality may depend on his performance at Triple-A Sugar Land. If both Heyward and Gamel continue to produce in McCormick’s absence, it will make calling him back up more difficult.
Both Brown and manager Joe Espada have emphasized that McCormick remains a part of Houston’s long-term future, but his dismal season must at least spur some discussion about his standing.
McCormick made $2.85 million this season and, despite the dreadful statistics, must receive a raise this winter during his second trip through the arbitration process.
Houston will have 10 arbitration-eligible players this offseason. Both Tucker and Framber Valdez will command massive salaries in their final season of eligibility. Shortstop Jeremy Peña will go through the process for the first time, too, and won’t be cheap.
None of the 10 arbitration-eligible Astros are obvious non-tender candidates, but McCormick’s pronounced struggles — coupled with a distinct possibility the Astros acquire a corner outfielder from outside the organization — make him the closest thing to one.
Trading McCormick, who has long been coveted by a few other clubs, could be a more sensible option, but this is still a player who posted a 117 OPS+ across 342 major-league games before this season. Cutting ties with him, especially for nothing in return, would seem short-sighted. So would trading him after such a dismal season depressed his value.
GO DEEPER
At the site of his career apex, Chas McCormick confronts a crossroads
(Top photo of Yusei Kikuchi: Kevin M. Cox / Getty Images)
