The 5 best Astros starts from April

Early on in the 2022 season the Houston Astros starting rotation has been hit or miss.  Justin Verlander has been solid to spectacular, Framber Valdez has had his moments and even Jake Odorizzi has had a really good outing.

While included here as a guide, this ranking is not based on the Game Score metric alone, because while it tells you how good the pitcher was in general, it doesn’t tell you what your eyes can tell you, for example, how dominant the pitcher was, or wasn’t, on that day.

With only six home games to date, all five of these have occurred on the road. With that in mind, here’s a look at the five best starts of April for the Astros rotation.

Framber Valdez – Game Score: 65 | IP: 6.0 | H: 4 | R: 1 | K: 5 | BB: 2

The only game on this list that the Houston Astros lost and the only one they lost in the four game series in Arlington.  The fact that the Astros scored a total of fourteen runs across four games and won three of them shows you how good the starters were in this series.

Valdez gave up only an unearned run in the second inning and the Astros scored in the top of the seventh to take a 2-1 lead to put Valdez in line for the win, but the bullpen imploded.

Framber was not particularly efficient taking 97 pitches to record 18 outs, walking two  and hitting a batter in the process. That said, he was typical in one way — 10 ground balls to three fly balls.  If Valdez can keep that ratio and walk only two over six innings the Astros have a good chance to win as they did in this game.

Jake Odorizzi – Game Score: 69 | IP: 6.0 | H: 4 | R: 1 | K: 4 | BB: 1

After losing the first game in Arlington and dropping to 7-9 on the season the Astros could have easily gone south with Odorizzi on the mound based on his prior starts which included game scores of 44, 29 and 28.  He had been bad.

Many Astros fans believe if they can just get 5 competent innings from Odorizzi the Astros will be fine and Odorizzi was more than up to the task on this day. Not overpowering, but more importantly not wild and far and away his most efficient outing of the season as Odorizzi averaged 4.3 pitches per out.

Odorizzi threw first pitch strikes to 12 of the 20 batters he faced, got 14 called strikes and 10 fly balls in his best outing of the season. This is the Odorizzi Houston needs every fifth or sixth day.

Framber Valdez – Game Score: 75 | IP: 6.2 | H: 2 | R: 0 | K: 6 | BB: 1

Valdez started the season right, going six and two-thirds innings without giving up a run. Because he gives up so few hits (7.7 per nine IP for career) Valdez is difficult to beat when he doesn’t walk batters and he only walked one of 22 faced on Opening Night, despite only throwing first pitch strikes to 10.

Valdez threw 64.2% strikes on his 84 pitches and averaged an efficient 4.2 pitches per out. He was pulled after an infield hit by Matt Duffy and with a little better luck would have thrown seven complete to start the season.

Justin Verlander – Game Score: 84 | IP: 8.0| H: 3 | R: 0 | K: 8 | BB: 0

After being tagged with a tough loss despite pitching well in his initial return from TJ surgery, start No. 2 on April 16 of the Verlander comeback tour was electric and he completely shut down the Mariners.

Adam Frazier led off with a single for Seattle in the bottom of the first and Verlander then retired the next nine Mariners in a row, until Ty France singled to lead off the fourth.  Verlander then retired the next eight batters until France again singled with two outs in the sixth.

The only other batter to reach base was on a hit by pitch and he was immediately erased on a double play.

How dominant was Verlander? His 3.6 pitches per out is the most efficient of the season to date for Astros starters, no Mariner got past first base and to date it’s highest game score in the American League and third highest MLB game score of the season.