Mid-August has brought a strange kind of reality to Houston: Peter Lambert has been the Astros’ most steady starter, and the rotation around him has not held up. The club took swings on reclamation arms, rolled the dice on Tatsuya Imai, and waited on the returns of Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wesneski. None of it has solved the problem.
Blanco has already been sent to Sugar Land after five games and a 7.71 ERA, and Houston’s bigger issue is that Hunter Brown has not been able to carry the load the way the Astros need him to.
Brown opened the year looking every bit like the pitcher who finished third in AL Cy Young voting in 2025. Through the end of June, he carried a 1.78 ERA, even though a right shoulder strain cost him a big stretch and left him with just five starts in that span. But since July 1, the numbers have tilted the other way: eight starts, a 4.78 ERA.
The biggest trouble spot has been fastball command. Brown has been landing his four-seamers in the zone just 44.1% of the time overall, and the last outing only sharpened the concern. On August 16 against the Mariners, only three of the 23 heaters he threw ended up as a called strike or a whiff.
When the fastball isn’t there, everything else gets exposed. Brown is walking batters at a 13.7% clip, and hitters no longer have to respect the heater the way they did earlier in the season. That has fed a higher home run rate, with Brown sitting at 1.18 HR/9 for the year and 1.45 HR/9 since July 1.
The fallout is obvious. More walks mean longer innings, bigger pitch counts and shorter starts.
That pushes more work onto a bullpen that has been one of the reasons Houston has stayed afloat. Josh Hader’s return from the IL gave the relief group a real lift, and since June 1 the Astros have the third-best bullpen ERA at 2.88.
But that edge won’t hold if the relievers keep getting worn down.
Houston’s rotation depth is thin enough that the fifth starter still isn’t settled, and that makes Brown’s outings even more important. If he isn’t efficient and dominant, the whole chain reaction can turn ugly fast.
The Astros are still in first place in the AL West, but that lead is tied as much to their own bounce-back as it is to the weakness around them. Seattle faded after Texas handed it three losses in four games at the end of July, then the Rangers stumbled too, with their bats going quiet and injuries piling up for players like Nathan Eovaldi and Josh Jung. Even so, both clubs remain in the mix, and the wild-card picture is crowded with teams stuck in the American League’s mediocrity.
That leaves Houston in a tense spot. The AL West could easily be the one path to October, especially with four contenders in the AL East and three more chasing spots in the AL Central. If that’s the case, the Astros need Brown to look like an ace again.
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The bullpen has done its part and kept the Astros afloat, but that only goes so far when the rotation is fighting uphill and the offense is not supplying much margin. The move from Spencer Arrighetti to Daulton Varsho was supposed to address a need, yet Varsho has struggled offensively since the trade, leaving the club still searching for answers in the middle of a division race that now feels less secure than it did a few weeks ago. [Read more 🡒]