Astros: The Miley Chronicles Vol. 13, How the Turntables

The Astros have to be concerned about Wade Miley who’s 13-5 on the year and a few weeks ago was ranked number three behind Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole.

After a stellar start to the year for Astros pitcher Wade Miley, something doesn’t seem right when you look at his last three starts. So what is going on with our featured star here at the Miley Chronicles? Is his Velocity declining? Is he having shoulder issues? Is he tipping pitches? How does a pitcher go from being number three in ERA and only twice given up four runs, to these previous two starts?

After the game on Sept. 10th, Mark Berman of Fox 26 Houston, asked Wade if he thought he was tipping pitches. Wade Miley, after sharing that he watched his last nine innings of work, simply responded.

"“Just trying to figure out if I’m tipping, if there’s something going on, but the swings they’re taking doesn’t really send signals toward tipping pitches.” Miley states that “It’s just baseball, it’s a hard game… I’ve been worse before than I am now…So yeah.”"

His ERA, after his second straight 1st inning exit, now sits at 3.35. Wait that can’t be right? Twitter is on fire claiming Miley is done, he’s unworthy and oh man this guy doesn’t have what it takes to be in a playoff game. Well, it’s a good thing Wade Miley and the Houston Astros pitching coaches don’t run their game plans through keyboard commandos, they rather look internally at the situation to find real solutions.

See, the Astros aren’t getting “All caught up in the feels” over this, as the kids would say. I am sure they are concerned about Miley, heck Miley is concerned about Miley. He’s watching tape, not reporting any injury issues and simply chalks this up to “It’s baseball”. Regardless of what players or coaches say, the general public is always going to look for conspiracies or lies as a way to justify tearing down someone who is clearly one of the best parts of this 2019 pitching staff.

On a podcast, I co-host The Rob and Wheelhouse Show. One of our co-hosts Corey Hightower mentioned that Wade Miley had the Brewers one step away from beating the Dodgers until being prematurely pulled by Craig Counsel in a game and series they would give way to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Buffalo Bills of the Major Leagues.

We do have to look at this objectively and see what may be going on. In three of his last seven starts, he has allowed five-plus runs, not all of those were earned, but they did happen when he was in the game. This is the first time all year he didn’t either get out of the first inning or record a strikeout.

In his second start where he failed to get out of the first inning, of the eight balls contacted, only two were hit with any real velocity, one at 101.7 MPH and the other at 101.8 MPH, so he got soft contacted and singled to death. Now, this has Astros fans questioning his validity as a playoff starter. His release points haven’t changed much, and his velocity doesn’t appear to have changed much.

Nothing is being reported by the team or even Wade Miley himself, not hinting toward any “discomfort” issues. I would assume that he and Brent Strom, along with The Famous Guys, will try to help their battery mate and get him back on track.

One thing we know for sure, of the thousands booing him off the mound and the naysayers out there lowering the gavel and telling him to hang it up, the Astros, nor Wade Miley aren’t having any of that. This hard-working Louisiana kid, as I have mentioned before, is no stranger to adversity, and I for one believe he can bounce back. Go Astros and Go Wade Miley!