Rays expose Hunter Brown’s kryptonite in brutal wake-up call

When Houston Astros starter Hunter Brown entered Wednesday's start against the Tampa Bay Rays, he was on quite the roll. Through his first nine starts, Brown was arguably the best starter in baseball and looked like one of the early AL Cy Young favorites. However, his latest outing against the Rays went awry in a hurry and one reason why was that Tampa came prepared to capitalize on one of Brown's normally positive tendencies.

Obviously this is just one performance and drawing conclusions from a single start — one that could have just not been Brown's day — is dangerous. It sure didn't help that the Astros and Rays were playing in a minor league stadium that has proven to be very hitter-friendly and home run prone. However, the Rays also knew that Brown has really likes to pound the strike zone early in the count and came out wanting to be aggressive at the plate. Tampa Bay planned to ambush him with great success.

Astros starter Hunter Brown has a tendency to pound the zone early, and it came back to bite him against Rays

From Brown's perspective, throwing strikes early makes loads of sense. He has incredible raw stuff and if he's able to get ahead of hitters early, Brown is going to be at a big advantage as he can just get opposing batters to chase one to send them back to the dugout.

However, Tampa scouted Brown well and have the type of personnel that can take advantage, especially when it comes to first pitch secondaries in the zone. The Rays hit three homers off Brown and all of them came on the first pitch. One came against a center-cut slider and the other two were on changeups that caught a lot of the plate.

For Brown, this is a game that he should file away as a lesson. If big league hitters know you're going to try to throw easy strikes early in counts, they are going to be swinging early to punish you. If he adjusts and starts throwing heaters on the edges or breaking stuff that dives out of the zone on occasion early in the count, he could turn the tables on the opposition. If Brown remains stubborn and doesn't adjust, he could be in for some even more tough days on the mound.

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