Bryan Abreu's simple adjustment could change Astros bullpen outlook entirely

For a Houston Astros bullpen that’s been one of the worst in baseball through the season’s first few weeks, every little bit of good news matters. After a tough outing to end the month of April, Bryan Abreu has quietly been better since the calendar flipped. And what’s so crazy is that the fix isn’t complicated. He’s simply throwing his best pitch more often.

Go back to the first month of the season, and Abreu threw his fastball 52.7% of the time and it got hit. He allowed a .278 average and .611 SLG on the pitch. The expected numbers were far less damaging, but what happened is what happened. His slider was also getting hit, but it’s the pitch that gets more swing and miss and did in April as well.

Astros reliever Bryan Abreu is leaning on his slider more than his fastball

The April numbers showed him throwing his fastball more often than his slider. In May, though, he’s thrown nearly 60% sliders and just under 40% four-seam fastballs, and the results have been obvious. 

Start with the fastball. Abreu’s four-seamer went from an average velocity of 97.3 mph to now 95 mph this season. That’s a big enough difference to cause a change in usage. And it’s a big enough difference to cause problems on a fastball that was so good for him last year when he threw it half the time. He’s acknowledged the issue, so he knew he had work to do.

And if your fastball isn’t playing and your slider — one of the best in baseball — still has its movement, the answer is pretty obvious. Throw the good one more.

Step back and see where the Astros are. The bullpen, after this weekend, has the worst ERA in MLB. Hunter Brown is on the IL. Cristian Javier is on the IL. Bennett Sousa is on the IL. And, most importantly in the bullpen, Josh Hader is on the IL. The walks have been killer, and Abreu was the pitcher who was supposed to anchor everything until Hader got back. Yet he had a 14.73 ERA in 7.1 innings with more walks than strikeouts to start the year.

That’s the context for why a slider-heavy approach is more than just a tweak. It’s a path back to relevance for a pitcher who can’t possibly trust his fastball. Joe Espada has been patient and mentioned that the only way to tap into what he can do is to give him opportunities, but eventually, that patience has to run out.

Leaning on that slider actually sidesteps the issue. His chase rate has dropped from 29.9% (69th percentile) to 22% (4th percentile). Nearly 59% of his pitches have been out of the zone, so of course that’s going to impact him. A slider he trusts the shape of is a far better candidate to live in the zone or just off it than a fastball he can’t figure out how to command.

This is where the bullpen outlook potentially flips. Hader has thrown four times in the minors. He hasn’t allowed a run in four innings with three hits allowed, six strikeouts, and one walk. It looks like he’s going to be back soon. When he comes back, Abreu can slide back into the setup role where he thrived last season. 

But the domino only falls cleanly if Abreu is actually pitching like himself. That’s why this pitch-mix shift, as simple as it is, matters more than a typical mid-May trend. There’s a track record here. The slider was outstanding last season. The pitch simply works, and it always has. If he can ride it back to even be 80% of his 2025 self, the whole bullpen picture changes with Hader, Abreu, Bryan King, Steven Okert, and others looks so much better.

So yes, it’s a small adjustment in the abstract. Throw more of the pitch that works and less of the pitch that doesn’t. But for a reliever whose collapse has been one of the storylines of the disappointing start to the season, it’s the best path forward. 

Hader’s return will help. The slider, though, is the only thing that Abreu can control right now, both literally and figuratively. If the early-May trend continues, it might be the move that resets the entire back of the bullpen before the season runs out of time to be saved.

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