Astros: The Miley Chronicles, Vol. 5: The Real Deal Holyfield?

The Houston Astros’ Wade Miley continues to impress, even though he didn’t record the win, he did a great job against a tough Cubs lineup.

Typically you wouldn’t see an article about a pitcher’s good stuff after a loss, but it is hard to deny that Wade Miley is doing what the Astros signed him to do. The Astros’ offense was quieted by a dominating performance from Kyle Hendricks for the Cubs, and sometimes that’s how the ball bounces.

Despite taking a 1-2 loss Miley recorded his 7th Quality Start of the season for the Astros. Miley’s line for the night was a respectable 7 IP, 6H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 9K

What did Miley and the Astros in on May 29th were the two solo home runs he gave up. Other than these quality AB’s by Kyle Schwarber and Kris Bryant, Miley kept the Cubs at bay and the Astros within striking distance.

Going into June the Astros have been without a big part of their offense, fielding what many fans are calling the Houston Express. This may have something to do with a game where they only put up a run, despite the offensive struggles, Miley still looked impressive vs the Cubs.

His latest opponent is the Division “Rival” Seattle Mariners. Miley came into the game off a hot start. He would only last five innings after giving up a couple of runs and a third run that was surrendered by Reymin Guduan, which gave him three total earned runs. His line for the evening was: 5 IP, 3 H, 3R, 3ER, 3BB, and 6K

He threw a total of 95 pitches before being removed from the game. Miley may not have picked up the victory, but the Astros would pour on the runs later in the game to take another victory for the streaking club by the score of 11-5.

After the game, Wade Miley felt good with his fastball and went away from it a little. He tipped his hat to the two hitters who got solo home runs off of him in the game. In all of his starts, he’s only given up more than three runs one time, and that was four runs to the Detroit Tigers.

According to ROTOGRAPHS, he went from being ranked 85th all the way up to 59th. While these are fantasy numbers, it’s significant for a few reasons. His value as a pitcher has gone way up, although, his average velocity was higher this game than one game removed from his stellar performance against the Cubs.

It is fair to say that the Astros have really gotten the most out of him up to this point. His pitch of choice was his Cutter which he threw 28.4% of the time, while he gave a healthy dose of fastballs (21.5%) and changeups (20.0%).

Wade Miley, with the drive to be better each time out and surrounded by crafty veterans like Justin Verlander, may see himself in the starting rotation for the Houston Astros when the time comes for them to face the National League in the 2019 World Series.