Astros: Ken Giles, the Closer

KEN GILES…THE NEWEST ASTROS CLOSER.

At first glance, the Astros bullpen has had a terrific 2016 season thus far.

The team’s bullpen leads the league in FIP (3.07) and WAR (6.3) as a collective group. Will Harris was named to the All-Star Game. Multiple members of the bullpen, despite a rough start to the season, have provided the Astros stable pitching when the rotation falters early.

However, that bit of good news doesn’t necessarily mean that everything in the bullpen has been just fine and dandy.

For example, the closer’s role has been a bit of an enigma for the Astros.

The first closer of 2016 was Luke Gregerson, who managed to keep the closer’s job from last season and promptly turned it over after blowing five saves by the first week of June. The Astros then tabbed the All-Star, Harris, as the closer immediately afterwards. And while the right-hander managed to successfully convert his first nine save opportunities before the All-Star break, his post All-Star break skid of three blown saves has effectively removed him from the closer’s role.

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This now leads us to the newest Astros closer, Ken Giles.

Out of all of the Astros relievers minus Tony Sipp, Giles had arguably the worst start of any to the 2016 season. For example, his first month as an Astro (10 innings pitched, 9.00 ERA) ended up being nothing short of a hot mess. He started to right the ship in May (11.1 innings pitched, 3.97 ERA), then flashed some of his past Phillies form in June (11.2 innings pitched, 2.31 ERA).

But the month of July (8.2 innings pitched, 0.00 ERA) was the first month that Giles truly looked like the pitcher that the Astros thought they were getting when the team surrendered multiple prospects last winter to the Phillies. The 25-year old flamethrower will now get his chance to reward the Astros faith in him as he inherits the closer job that everyone assumed would be his sooner or later.

Next: Astros Roundup: McCullers' Injury, Reed and Hoyt Up

Ironically, the closer’s role for the Astros was thought to be a strength after the acquisition of Giles. The question now becomes whether Giles will hold up as the team’s closer for the long term.

**Statistics provided by Fangraphs & Baseball-Reference**