Houston Astros: Trend – Who’s Hot, Who’s Not

Who’s Hot

Yuli Gurriel

Gurriel has been on an absolute tear out the gate, hitting .429 with an OPS of 1.142. He’s had six multi-hit games this year and is currently on a five-game hit streak (9-16, .587 BA). Only Ronald Acuna, Yermin Mercedes, Brandon Nimmo and Nelson Cruz are putting up stats like that this April.

Gurriel has been absolutely smoking fastballs – hitting .470 against them and spraying them all over the field. The only pitch he’s been getting fooled on is the slider (.174 BA), but he’s only seen 45 of those pitches. He’s also been crushing pitches on the inside part of the plate (.600 BA).

The way to get Gurriel out is by throwing off-speed stuff on the outside of the plate – but with the way he’s seeing the ball right now, that’s a not exactly easy for pitchers. We shouldn’t expect him to hit over .400 for the entire season, but this is really encouraging to see Gurriel rake like this at age 36.

Ryne Stanek

The hard-throwing reliever was signed as a free agent in the offseason and as thus far been nothing but great. In seven innings pitched, Stanek has only given up one hit (a HR vs the A’s) to go along with an ERA of 1.29 with 10 strikeouts and one walk.  Stanek relies on a fastball-split finger mix – using his fastball to get strikes ahead of the count, then uses his split finger to generate swing-and-misses – which has been on point so far.

Time will tell whether Stanek could be a closer or primary set-up guy, but Stanek is showing some real promise early on and looks to be a great signing for the Astros.

Who’s not

Martin Maldonado

Martin Maldonado has never been a monster at the plate (career .219 BA) but he is really struggling right now. He is currently hitting .091 with an OPS of .209, at the same time being in the bottom 5% in the league in exit velocity and strikeout rate.

Maldonado has historically been bad against breaking pitches (career .140 BA), but decent against the fastball (.234 BA). That’s not the case this year. He’s hitting .111 against the fastball and .083 vs. breaking balls. Simply put, pitchers are throwing more breaking balls at Maldonado and, at the same time, he’s not cashing in on fastballs. What’s more troubling is the fact that all three of his hits were all located in the middle of the plate– which might indicate more of a pitching mistake than “good hitting”.

He’s certainly in a deep slump. Perhaps going on the IL for some time might be good for Maldonado to give him time to regroup and fix his approach to the plate.

Joe Smith

You honestly could pick a handful of pitchers in the Astros bullpen who haven’t been good, but let’s go with Joe Smith.

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Smith’s return to the mound after opting out of last year hasn’t gone very well– giving up eight hits and five earned runs in less than four innings of work. Smith got lit up down against the A’s and gave up the lead, then gave up two earned runs in an inning against the A’s. Last night, Smith came into the 4th inning against the Tigers and proceeded to give up two hits and a walk without recording an out. His ERA right now is at 13.50; a cringe-worthy number even though he’s only had three innings.

Hitters have been crushing his sinker and four seam fastball, two pitches that he’s usually pretty good at. Hopefully, Smith, a 13-year vet with a 3.03 ERA, can settle down and get back to his slider-sinker-fastball combo and get more outs. The Astros need him.