3 Takeaways From Astros-Yankees Series

The Houston Astros just finished up a four-game series against the New York Yankees in the Bronx this past weekend. It was a heavily anticipated matchup even before the season began due to the animosity between the two teams, especially between Brian Cashman and Jim Crane exchanging barbs over sign stealing this year.

It only added more drama considering these are the teams with the two best records in the American League by wide margins and are looking to be on a collision course for their third American League Championship Series matchup in six years.

There are three takeaways the Astros and their fanbase have learned after watching this four-game series.

We’ll go with what is the one that was probably most pressing on everyone in Houston’s mind coming into this series.

A Hunter Brown call-up will be necessary to save the bullpen before September.

The Astros just added Enoli Paredes to the bullpen as this past weekend it was clear our high-leverage arms, the ones that have been the best in baseball, are starting to show some fatigue.

Paredes has done a great job in triple-A pitching to the tune of a 0.93 ERA with 41 strikeouts in 29 innings. He’ll be a much needed boost to a lagging bullpen who seem to be showing the wear and tear of a long season as we come up on the midway point of the year.

But Paredes should not be the only reinforcement based on what we saw against the Yankees in this series. Hunter Brown can fill the now vacant Cristian Javier role of super long reliever in the bullpen.

Brown has been primarily used as a starter and, just like Cristian Javier, the team sees him long term in the rotation. But with Javier pretty much cementing his spot in the rotation with 13 strikeouts and no hits over seven innings against the highest scoring offense in baseball, there’s now a long relief hole that currently Bryan Abreu and Seth Martinez are filling.

But Hunter Brown is the number one prospect in the Astros system and he is solidifying himself as an untouchable prospect. And all signs point to the fact that he would be completely comfortable in a relief role considering his numbers at AAA. Here are his side-by-side numbers as a starter and a reliever:

Starter: 2-3, 4.19 ERA, 38.2 innings, 56 strikeouts, 24 walks and a 1.42 WHIP.

Reliever: 2-0, 1 save, 0.00 ERA, 22 innings, 29 strikeouts, five walks and a 0.73 WHIP.

Yes, you read that correctly. He’s given up zero runs in 22 innings. He hasn’t even given up an unearned run. Nothing has come across the plate while he’s pitched in relief. And these aren’t short one inning outings.

Of his relief appearances, Brown has pitched five innings in three appearances, four innings in another and three in another where he earned the save.

Considering how quickly we saw high leverage relievers can burn out in a four game series, Brown’s length will be needed in October to save those one inning guys when we get to five or seven game series.

The Astros need to explore the trade market for a catcher or center fielder.

Coming into this series I wrote an article about how this series will give the Astros an idea of what they need to get past the Yankees come October.

After the first inning of the first game it was looking like a rotation upgrade was going to be in order as Framber Valdez struggled with control and yielded the Astros 3-0 lead right back in the bottom half of the inning on a Giancarlo Stanton three run homer.

He then settled in and shut the Yankees down and if it weren’t for a 16 pitch Anthony Rizzo walk in the sixth inning of that game he would have gotten to the seventh inning. Something the Astros other three starters in the series, Justin Verlander, Cristian Javier and Jose Urquidy, all did.

The line for the Astros starting pitching was phenomenal regardless of who you’re facing. But the fact that they pitched 27 innings, all quality starts, and gave up a grand total of five runs, seven hits and 26 strikeouts in those 27 innings against the best offense in baseball is truly mind blowing.

But the reason the Yankees were even able to stay in these games and steal away two of them is because the offense couldn’t add more runs on. The Astros had plenty of chances throughout this series to blow these games open, but they scored three runs in three of the four games and relied on the home run a lot.

In fact 12 of the Astros 15 runs scored this weekend came via the long ball.  They weren’t able to manufacture runs or nibble here or there with a sacrifice fly or RBI groundout when needed.

On top of which 11 of their 15 RBI were from four of the top five hitters in their lineup split between three for Kyle Tucker, three for Yordan Alvarez, three for Alex Bregman and two for Jose Altuve. All of those were on home runs as well.

This series showed the Astros more than anything need some depth on their bench and a new center fielder and/or upgrade at catcher. The market is thin on high end talent this year in terms of position players but any upgrade to lengthen the lineup in some capacity needs to happen.

The Astros just faced the team they will most likely have to beat to get to the World Series for the fourth time in six years. If they can turn those 3-0 leads into 5-0 or 6-0 leads and demoralize the other team making them swing for the fences more and take less patient approaches, that will be the key to beating the Yankees come autumn.

You can’t let a team with their offensive firepower hang around knowing it only takes a couple walks and a blast to get them back in the game. There’s a reason they lead the league in come from behind wins with 23.

Insurance runs will be the name of the game and not letting the foot off the gas at a three run lead. Playing as if it’s zero-zero still because the Yankees have proven they can get up off the mat, even in the ninth inning if all it takes is a couple base runners and one swing of the bat.

The best way to upgrade this team in preparation for facing the Bronx Bombers in October is to get someone who can lengthen the lineup and help produce some insurance runs. The top half of the batting order is fine.

The bottom half needs help, at least if the Astros don’t want to leave it up to the bullpen to lock down the best offense every single time. And as stated earlier, considering the Yankees have 22 come from behind wins this year, those insurance runs could be the difference between a date with the World Series again or watching it from home.