Houston’s rotation problem has become impossible to ignore, and it reaches well beyond the Astros’ recent postseason failures.
The club has now dropped six straight playoff games going back to 2023, and the latest exits have only sharpened the same old concern: Houston keeps running out of starting pitching. In those six games, the bullpen has had to cover 37 1/3 innings, which amounts to 69% of the 54 innings the Astros have logged during that postseason skid since Game 6 of the ALCS against the Texas Rangers.
Even if the offense had done enough to erase the deficit issues that have plagued these teams, the underlying pitching structure still looks too fragile to survive deep in October. During the streak, only two Houston starters have gone at least five innings.
Hunter Brown was the most recent, working 5 2/3 innings, allowing one earned run and taking no decision in the Astros’ 5-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers in Game 2 of the 2024 Wild Card Series. Before that, the last one was Framber Valdez, who lasted five innings and gave up three runs in Game 6 of the 2023 ALCS, a 9-2 loss.
The other starts in the stretch were even shorter. Cristian Javier recorded only one out in Game 7 of the 2023 ALCS. This year, AJ Blubaugh and Brown both exited after getting just two outs and one out, respectively.
That shortage showed up again when the Astros pulled within 4-3 in Game 2 against the White Sox, only to have Joe Espada already forced to go to Peter Lambert, who had been lined up as the Game 3 starter if the series had continued. Espada was managing to win the game, not waving a white flag. The issue was that there was no cleaner route available.
The deeper concern is how far back the erosion goes. Houston has lost both rotation depth and the kind of impact innings that used to stabilize the staff, with regression piling up from 2024 to now.
The 2026 numbers make the point plain. Lambert was the only Astros pitcher to throw at least 150 innings, finishing at 155 2/3.
The team also had several pitchers on the injured list, but injury alone doesn’t explain everything. A roster can only absorb so much if it isn’t built with enough strength and enough developing arms ready to step in.
Lambert’s rise was the strange twist in all of it. He entered Opening Day as an unknown, then quickly became the surprise who held the rotation together with his consistency.
The FanGraphs table in the source shows that Lambert was also the only Houston starter above 2.0 fWAR on a rotation that had just five pitchers reach 50 innings. Brown was the only other starter besides Lambert to get past 100 innings, finishing with 107 1/3.
Until Houston changes how it addresses the rotation problem, there just won’t be much reason to expect a different October result.
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