Houston Astros: Detroit vs Houston Series Preview

The Houston Astros will remain at home still in search of their first series victory of 2016.  The competition does not get any easier as the 6-2 Detroit Tigers come into Town.

Houston has lost three games in a row and is now 3-7 on the year.  The Astros simply cannot put a full game together, either struggling to get runs or struggling to get pitching.  Offensively, production is solely coming from Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Tyler White and Colby Rasmus.  Carlos Gomez and George Springer have looked absolutely terrible at the plate, and Gomez has also made base running errors.  As far as pitching, Keuchel and Feldman been mediocre, McHugh had a nice bounce-back game after getting shelled, and both Mike Fiers and Doug Fister have had one decent and bad outing.  Starting pitching has been nothing spectacular, to say the least.

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The bullpen has been inconsistent except for Luke Gregerson, Will Harris, and newcomer Chris Devenski.  Ken Giles has gotten off to a terrible start.  He has given up three home runs in 3.2 innings of work, whereas last season he gave up two long balls in 70 innings.  Josh Fields and Tony Sipp have also been very shaky to start the year.

Detroit’s hot start has been fueled by outstanding hitting from both J.D. Martinez (ex-Astro) and Ian Kinsler.  Miguel Cabrera is only hitting .241 to start the year, so he is still waiting in the wings to cause some damage as well.  Jordan Zimmerman has been the ace of the staff thus far going 2-0 in 13 scoreless innings.  Anibal Sanchez and Shane Greene have also had nice starts.  The bullpen has been average but has not lost any games for the Tigers.

The Tigers lead the AL with an incredible .295 team batting average, and 49 runs scored, in only eight games; Houston is sixth and fifth in those categories respectively.  The Astros do lead the AL with 15 home runs, but also 102 strikeouts, which is similar to last season’s story.  Astro pitching is sported the league’s worst team ERA at 5.44 and has given up the most home runs at 16.  The solution is simple, and Houston will need to start getting more timely hits, and get better pitching to have a chance at cooling of the Tigers in Minute Maid.

Next: Game 1

Game 1 – Mike Pelfrey (0-1, 14.73) vs. Dallas Keuchel (1-1, 3.55)

The 32-year-old, former first-round pick Mike Pelfrey is in his first year with his third major league team,  His tenure with the Tigers has gotten off to a rocky start.  In 3.2 innings, he gave up six earned runs and eight hits to the Yankees lineup in his 2016 debut outing.  Pelfrey’s dominant pitch is the sinker, which averaged around 90 mph in his outing against New York, which was three mph less than his average last year.  Every single one of the Yankees hits were off his sinker, so he will either need to throw that pitch more efficiently or look to incorporate more off-speed pitches.

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• Astros prospect Hunter Brown throws 6 shutout innings in debut
• Always faithful Astros World Series champion Josh Reddick defends the title
• Michael Conforto declines Astros’ 2-year, $30 million offer
• Alex Bregman goes off in August, leads Astros

Pelfrey has not had much luck in Minute Maid Park, going 0-2 with a 9.90 ERA and giving up three home runs in 10 innings of work; he also is historically bad at both opening and closing seasons, with a career ERA of over 5.00 in both April and September.  The Astro with most at-bats against Pelfrey is Colby Rasmus with nine, including one home run.

Keuchel has struggled with his control in his first two 2016 starts.  He has walked ten batters so far this year, last year he totaled 51 walks the entire season.  His BB/9 average is at 7.1 as opposed to 2.6 career average.  Hitters seem to be taking a more patient approach this year as so far more of his pitches outside of the zone have been taken instead of swung at.  Last year hitters swung at 47% of Keuchel’s change-ups outside the zone, this year 18%.  His slider got 43% swings, and now 25% of those pitches outside the zone. He has offset his control issues with 13 strikeouts, and by not allowing any home runs. He has fared decently against Detroit over his career, and last year won his only start against them, giving up one run over seven innings.
Game Prediction:  Astros 8 – Tigers 2

Next: Game 2

Game 2 – Justin Verlander (0-1, 8.71) vs. Collin McHugh (1-1, 6.14)

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• Houston Astros: A Lineup Change to Spark Offense
• Astros prospect Hunter Brown throws 6 shutout innings in debut
• Always faithful Astros World Series champion Josh Reddick defends the title
• Michael Conforto declines Astros’ 2-year, $30 million offer
• Alex Bregman goes off in August, leads Astros

The might Verlander doesn’t appear to have it anymore; pitching that is.  He still has Kate Upton and plenty in the bank, so congrats, but back to baseball.  Injuries have had definite effects on the 33-year-old.  He has had core and triceps injuries over the past two seasons, and the fastball that used to average 95 mph is now down to 92 mph.  Decreased velocity probably hasn’t been as big of an issue as location.  He did rebound last year and put together a good finish to 2015, so it remains to be seen if he can pick that back up.  He has had success against Astros hitters, holding the bulk to a very low average.  Altuve is hitting .500 in six at-bats against him.  Over his career, Verlander has started four games in Houston going 1-0 with a 2.13 ERA.

Collin McHugh put the worst start of his career in New York behind him and turned in a seven-inning shutout performance against the Kansas City Royals.  This was needed as the Astros’ starting pitchers got blasted in New York and Milwaukee for the most part.  It’s tough to pinpoint the difference between the two starts, given the extremely small sample of his first outing, but we can assume that his pitches might have had a bit more movement and bite in the second outing, and bottom line, the Yankees bats were on fire.  McHugh will look to further lower is 6.14 ERA against a Detroit team he has only started two games against.  For his career, McHugh is 0-1 with a 2.57 ERA.  Both J.D. Martinez and Justin Upton have taken McHugh deep.
Game Prediction: Tigers 4 – Astros 1

Next: Game 3