Houston Astros: Hooks Coming Into Form Down the Stretch

Pitching and Defense

In his Double A debut, 23 year old right hander Ryan Deemes struck out three batters and allowed one hit in 1 2/3rds innings of work on Tuesday and picked up another pair of strikeouts Sunday night in two innings of scoreless relief. Deemes has a 3.13 ERA in 38 appearances between Quad Cities, Lancaster, and now Corpus Christi, but he’s been even more impressive of late. Since June 30th (15 games), Deemes has a 1.71 ERA and opposing batters are hitting .242 against him with a measly .347 slugging percentage. In that time frame he has allowed just four extra base hits, all doubles.

Deemes wasn’t along in his pitching dominance this week. In six games, 13 different pitchers combined to allow just eight runs with a 1.29 ERA. Every starter produced a quality start and Francis Martes pitched a seven inning shutout, allowing just three hits. Martes has not allowed more than seven hits in any start this season and has a 1.172 WHIP.

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The relief corps was only called upon to pitch 17 innings this week because of the tremendous starting pitching. Kyle Smith was charged with loss in extra innings on Thursday night against Midland after allowing the go-ahead run on three consecutive hits in the top of the 11th. He was charged with a pair of additional runs when Jacob Dorris allowed two of those runners to score on a double.

**Statistics from MiLB.com and Baseball Reference**