Astros Countdown: Top Five Individual Pitches

With the Houston Astros in the midst of a very long season, there is a lot to talk about.

Every Friday, I will be counting down aspects of all parts of the Astros as a whole, from the players on the roster, the players on the way and some other surprises along the way. Today, I start with the top five individual pitches currently on the Astros active roster. 

5. Will Harris Cutter

When it is all said and done, RHP Will Harris may be the steal of Jeff Luhnow’s tenure as general manager of the Houston Astros. He spent three seasons bouncing around between the major and minor league systems of the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Harris, in his three seasons in an Astros uniform, has a 2.03 ERA and a 0.97 WHIP.

So far this season, Harris has continued being a consistent force out of the Astros bullpen. He has a 1.59 ERA with nine strikeouts with and a 0.97 WHIP in 11 appearances this season. With only the small sample size of 11 innings of work, Harris’ groundball percentage has decreased to 45.5 percent so far this season.

It’s all about the groundball.

The groundball is what brings Harris success, averaging over 50 percent in his first two seasons in Houston. The pitch that enforces the ground ball most in Harris’ repertoire is his cutter.

In his first two seasons, Harris has relied heavily on his cutter, throwing it to batters over 60 percent of the time. The pitch tops out just over 91 mph. But he throws the pitch with an average extension of 6.33 feet, 0.4 feet better than the average pitcher that throws a cutter. When hit, his cutter is hit 4.41 mph more softly than the average cutter at 81.56 mph.

Harris will not overpower opposing hitters. He will only throw in the low to mid-nineties. However, Harris has shown that if he stays true to who he is as a pitcher, his cutter is a weapon that generates weak contact and can get much-needed outs at the end of the ballgame.

4. Dallas Keuchel’s Two-seam fastball

LHP Dallas Keuchel is back to his old ways. After winning the Cy Young Award and finishing fifth in MVP voting back in 2015, the left-handed ace struggled to find his footing in 2016. His ground ball percentage was down to 56.7 percent. This was his lowest since 2013 and his fly ball percentage was at 24.4 percent, the highest it has been since his rookie season on 2012. With an ERA back up to 4.55 and a WHIP at 1.29, Keuchel, to the national baseball fans, may have looked like a one-and-done success story.

However, Keuchel seems to be back and better than ever in 2017. In six starts, he is 5-0 with a 1.21 ERA, striking out only 36 batters in 44.2 innings of work with a WHIP of 0.86. Even though his fly ball percentage has not changed drastically. Keuchel’s ground ball percentage is back up in the low-60 percent range.

Chicks dig the groundball!

That high ground ball rate is because if his increased use of his two-seam fastball. Much like Harris’ cutter, his two-seam fastball is a little bit slower than average, 3.59 mph less than average to be exact. But generates weaker contact, with the average exit velocity from opposing hitters at 85.36 mph.

So far in 2017, Keuchel has thrown this pitch 43 percent of the time, the highest in his career. Out of that, with the amount of movement on the pitch, he has generated less contact, with opposing hitters making contact only 75 percent of the time, a career low for the former Arkansas Razorback. However, when the ball is in the strike zone, hitters have hit his pitches 90 percent of the time.

Like Harris in the bullpen, Keuchel is not trying to fool anyone. He is just throwing his two-seam fastball low to hitters to generate more contact and get more ground ball outs. So far in 2017, it seems to be working very effectively.

3. Ken Giles’ Slider

With a pitcher like RHP Ken Giles, it is hard just to pick one of his two nasty pitches. It is either a four-seam fastball that averages out at 97 mph or a slider with a nasty break thrown about ten mph slower. Either way, this two-pitch combination has been effective especially in the strikeout numbers, striking out 116 batters in his 76.2 innings pitched in an Astros uniform over the past two seasons.

So why am I focusing on the slider as opposed to the overpowering fastball? First of all, this breaking ball is what Giles throws the majority of the time, throwing it a career high 54.8 percent of the time this season.

100 miles Giles!

It seems like the slider is the pitch that Giles uses to get ahead of hitters to use his fastball as his strikeout pitch. For example, in his last appearance against the Texas Rangers on May 1, Giles faced SS Elvis Andrus who eventually grounded into a double play to end the game and earn Giles save No. 7 of the year. However, if you look at the pitch sequence, Andrus saw three straight sliders until Giles tried to get Andrus to strike out on a high 99.7 mph fastball for the second out.

With the increased usage of the slider this season, it seems like hitters are more likely to swing through this breaking ball than the four-seam fastball. Last month, batters whiffed on 20.88 percent of breaking balls thrown by Giles compared to only 5.19 percent of fastballs.

The slider he throws is a bit above average regarding velocity, but the interesting aspect f the pitch is his release point. Giles released his breaking ball 1.05 feet before pitchers usually do. With this, the average spin rate on the pitch is 147 rpm higher than average, and the average exit velocity is only at 77.58 mph.

It may be kind of different thinking to use a breaking pitch to set up a straight heater, but with all of the strikeouts attached to Giles’ name, he must be doing something right.

2. Lance McCullers Jr.’s Knuckle Curveball

RHP Lance McCullers Jr. has some nasty stuff that he can throw. Relying on a four-seam fastball, a knuckle curveball, and a change-up, McCullers strikes out an average of 11.72 batters per nine innings, 30.9 percent of all hitters, while generating ground balls on 57.5 percent of all balls in play. However, after two starts on the road in Oakland and in Cleveland in which he gave up a combined ten earned runs in 9.1 innings pitched, his ERA is 4.08 after six starts.

Knuckle up!

Like Giles, McCullers uses his knuckle curveball a lot, throwing it 50.1 percent of the time. According to brooksbaseball.net, this breaking ball, “generates a high number of swings and misses” and “results in somewhat more groundballs” than other pitchers’ curveballs. The pitch’s average velocity normally sits at 85.6 mph with a spin rate of 2699 rpm, 332 rpm above average for the pitch.

Even though it has been known to generate ground balls, McCullers uses it as a strikeout pitch as well, with opposing batters whiffing at 19.53 percent of curveballs thrown in April. Hitters have found more success against the pitch this year, hitting .267 with it in 2017. However, as numbers have shown in the past, it will most likely lower as time goes on.

McCullers has relief pitcher-style pitches in his repertoire as a starting pitcher. That curveball is nasty. Even though it may not be working as well in his first six starts of the 2017 season, that pitch has the potential to carry him to become the ace of this pitching staff.