Houston Astros’ Ken Giles: Looking Into The Statistics

A Look at the Struggles of Houston Astros’ Reliever Ken Giles

Before the season started, everyone’s expectations were that Ken Giles was going to come into the Astros’ organization and be the shutdown closer from the get-go. A.J. Hinch was mum on the decision and then decided to go with Luke Gregerson and stick Giles as the set-up man.

Through a month of the season as the set-up man, it’s pretty safe to say Giles has been atrocious. In eleven appearances, Giles has given up ten runs, leading to a 9.00 ERA. He also has a WHIP of 2.00, and only has four holds. He has done a solid job of mixing his fastball and slider, but according to Fangraphs, neither pitch has been as effective as last year.

The main issue with Giles so far is his fastball. Batters have a .500 average against it, which is a lot worse than the .255 average from last year. Another issue is he isn’t generating a lot of swing and miss from his fastball. He has thrown his fastball 109 times, and only generates a swinging strike percentage of 3.7%. What really made Giles’s fastball so effective last year was his ability to induce the groundball.

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He has given up more line drives and home runs than ground balls this year, something that isn’t going to help out much. Against the fastball, his line drive percentage is 40.9% while his ground ball rate is 18.2%.

His slider has been pretty solid. Hitters are averaging .208 against the pitch, and his strikeout rate with the slider is 48.1%, compared to last years strikeout rate at 49.6%. His slider has been the only effective pitch to makes batters miss and induce ground balls. The pitch has gotten him out of many problems that he has gotten into this year, and it’d be interesting to see how much worse he’d be without the effective pitch.

A big issue with Giles is staying ahead in the count throughout the at bat. He has done a pretty good job of starting ahead. The issue is getting from a 0-1 count to a 0-2 count. He has gone to a 0-1 count 29 times, but he has an average against at .346 through a 0-1 count, and he has only gotten to 0-2 13 times. He is either missing the zone or giving up a hit when he gets ahead early.  

Another problem has been the command. He’s left more pitches right down the middle than any other zone, and the zone right behind it, concerning the second highest amount of pitches thrown, is the middle-low zone. Against lefties, he has struggled staying low and away in the zone.

A lot of his damage is over the middle of the plate, which is expected for most pitchers, but the issue is he’s throwing over the plate too much. Against righties, he’s doing a good job creating swings outside of the zone (which is expected when throwing a slider). The issue is he’s attacked some righties inside, and it has cost him.

Jake Kaplan joined the boys at Talking Stros last night to talk about Giles

There are a lot of things that Giles needs to do to improve. He needs to work lower a lot more in the zone and be able to use that to utilize the swing-and-chase slider even more. Taking him out of the set-up role is crucial. He needs to be able to pitch in less stressful situations and get the confidence back in his fastball. He is essential for the Astros if they end up turning it around and contending.

Next: Houston Astros: Five Ways the Astros Can Improve in May

Fans cannot forget how much potential and how good he really is when he’s dealing. The thing he and the Astros need to work on is getting him to that point.  

**Stats by Fangraphs**