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Top Astros pitching prospect finally has breakout performance we've been waiting for

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Climbing Tal's Hill

Hooks pitcher Miguel Ullola throws a pitch on Opening Night at Whataburger Field on Friday, April 5, 2024, in Corpus Christi, Texas. / Angela Piazza/Caller-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK

There is one universal truth for the Houston Astros or any other MLB team out there and that is you can never have enough pitching. The Astros' pitching staff has done a tremendous job so far in 2025, but all it would take is one injury and another guy regressing for their current picture to get very spooky all of a sudden. Coming into the season, one guy that many thought would have already forced his way into the discussion is Miguel Ullola.

Ullola has the kind of swing and miss stuff that every team wants to work with. His fastball is among the best in the minor leagues period and his breaking stuff has come a long way. The problem has always been that he has not been able to command his stuff consistently which has led to a lot of walks that have caused his starts to often spiral out of control.

Even this season, Ullola has a troubling walk rate with 11 BB against 26 strikeouts in 20 innings of work. However, his latest start was a reminder of what he is capable of when he is on his game.

One can only hope that Miguel Ullola's monster game is a sign of things to come

While not against big league opposition, striking out 10 batters at Triple-A in five innings of work is incredibly hard to do and extremely impressive. In the above clip, you can see that opposing hitters have a tremendously difficult time picking the ball up out of his hand and his fastball really jumps on guys. If he can just live around the strike zone, he is going to get a lot of guys flailing.

That said, this is just one start. We have seen this sort of thing before as just last season, he had a start where he went six innings and struck out 12 albeit one where he also gave up two homers. A one game sample only tells us so much as awesome a start as it was.

However, what it does tell us is that Ullola can continue to dominate hitters even as his pitch count goes up. There are a nonzero amount of scouts that have been convinced for a while that Ullola's command issues and the profile of his stuff makes him destined for the bullpen and maybe that is where he ends up. That is far from a certainty, though, and Ullola just showed that he could be much more than that.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.