WASHINGTON - Mike Burrows keeps giving the Astros something they can use, even as the rest of the package has been hard to stomach.
That’s the strange reality of his first half in Houston. No American League starter has a worse ERA, WHIP or batting average against, and yet Burrows still has a way of grinding through enough innings to matter.
He has thrown a team-high 94 2/3 innings, and 15 of his first 16 starts lasted at least five frames. For an Astros staff that went two months without Hunter Brown and never found an established replacement for Framber Valdez, that kind of volume has had value.
It just hasn’t come close to matching the price Houston paid to get him.
On Monday, though, the balancing act broke badly.
Burrows took a five-run lead into the third inning against the Washington Nationals and gave it right back after facing five batters. One walked, four others lined hits off him at 98 mph or harder, and CJ Abrams capped the damage with a three-run homer to tie the game in the kind of ugly burst that has come to define Burrows’ season.
“I just feel like I let our team down,” Burrows said after the 12-11 loss. “They gave me a good lead, and I kinda spoiled it.”
Even after the collapse, he settled in for a stretch. Between the third and fourth innings, he retired six of seven hitters, with the lone baserunner reaching on an infield single that went 3 feet.
That has been his pattern for much of the season: the early mess, then enough survival to get through five or six innings and leave the offense a chance to rescue the day. He attacks the zone, looks for quick contact and works efficiently when things are even a little bit right.
“We just have to create some opportunities for him to go to areas where we can get some quick outs,” manager Joe Espada said. “He’s shown signs of that, but we need more consistency out of his pitches.
“There’s signs where he throws a couple of good pitches, where you’re like, ‘OK, that’s the shape that we want. That’s the location we want.’
But it’s creating more consistency. Can we do it for two or three innings in a row?”
Monday made the question louder. Burrows didn’t get through the fifth, allowed seven earned runs and left an already taxed bullpen to cover 11 outs in a game Houston led 6-1 entering the bottom of the third. That’s a rough one to defend.
“We need more consistency,” Espada said. “He’s working his tail off. We got to give him credit, but we have to help him through this process and try to get him right.”
The Astros’ options are starting to crowd the picture. Burrows’ ERA climbed to 5.99 after the outing, and he has given up 21 home runs in 18 appearances.
Twelve of those homers came with runners on base. He also has minor-league options left, and Houston already gave him a “breather” in the bullpen for one turn through the rotation last month.
Burrows says the confidence is still there.
“I don’t think there’s any diminished confidence,” Burrows said. “I’m in the zone.
I’m not afraid to make these guys swing. You get beat a couple times a game.
If it’s right at someone, it’s going to be a great start. If it finds its way away from them or over the fence, that’s when some runs come.
You can’t be perfect. You just try and execute pitches and get outs.”
The problem is that he’s trying to make several adjustments at once - arm angle, mound position, pitch sequencing - while still taking the ball every fifth or sixth day.
“It’s challenging to just walk in the next start and be somebody that you weren’t (in the) last start. That’s tough,” Burrows said.
“Continuing to work and going out there every six days is what everybody does. Whether it’s something small or something a little more major in an adjustment, try not to make it all at once and try not to lose the mindset of going out there and competing every fifth day.
Just have to juggle that and work your way through it.”
That juggling act may not stay in the rotation much longer. Ronel Blanco and Lance McCullers Jr. are scheduled to make minor-league rehab appearances Tuesday in a piggyback outing at Triple-A Sugar Land. McCullers has built up to 60 pitches in his first two rehab starts, and Blanco, returning from Tommy John surgery, has also reached 60 pitches in his recovery.
Neither is expected to help Houston before the All-Star break, but both loom over the second half. Cristian Javier is also in the bullpen and stretched out like a starter, with far more major-league pedigree than Burrows.
Burrows, for his part, came into this winter with only 99 1/3 innings of major-league experience when Houston acquired him. Espada called him “still a young pitcher” Monday night and said he needs help through the process.
The next stop could be a telling one. Houston entered Monday one game behind the Texas Rangers for the final American League playoff spot, and Burrows is lined up to start Sunday against the Rangers in the Astros’ first-half finale. Even in early July, that one carries weight.
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