Trademark of tried-and-true success absent from Astros' recent pitching performances

The Houston Astros pitching staff has been on quite the heater of late. Heading into Wednesday's game against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Astros have allowed the fewest runs (10) of all major league teams over the past week. Houston is 5-1 during that span, and only the Washington Nationals, Texas Rangers, and Boston Red Sox have allowed fewer hits during that span.

Houston's pitching is keeping runs off the board, but they're doing in a rather peculiar manner. While Astros pitchers rank sixth in total strikeouts (216) on the season, that has not been their MO of late. Houston has just 35 punch outs over the last seven days, joining the likes of the Colorado Rockies (28) and Minnesota Twins (30).

But while strikeouts usually equate to outs, which equates to wins, the Astros pitching staff doesn't need to rack up the swings and misses in order to get the W. In fact, during the past week, every other team residing in the bottom-third of MLB in Ks had a losing record. Houston must be doing something right.

Trademark of tried-and-true success absent from Astros' recent pitching performances

They're inducing soft contact and ground balls, something their top two starters do very well. According to Baseball Savant, Hunter Brown is among the top 20% in both ground ball rate and hard hit rate. The average exit velocity against Brown is 85 mph, which ranks among the 92nd percentile. Though Valdez's numbers are nowhere near as good as Brown's, his 52.5% ground ball is among the 81st percentile in MLB, and he's backed up by a solid infield defense.

Ronel Blanco actually had a ton of swing-and-miss (12) on Tuesday night, but the right-hander delivered his best performance of the season and Blue Jays' batters were only able to muster an average exit velocity of 81.4 mph. Toronto's bats couldn't make contact, and when they did, it was weak. Only Nathan Lukes and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. were able to log hard hit balls against Blanco on Tuesday night.

Obviously the Astros pitching staff can get strikeouts—they've already proven that. But their performances over the past week have added a new dimension to Houston's already dangerous group of hurlers. The Astros' pitching staff will look to continue their dominance during Wednesday's series finale with Ryan Gusto on the hill for Houston. The rookie has done of poor job of inducing soft contact this season, so it'll be interesting to see if that changes during his upcoming start.

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