A short look into the team’s issues at controlling the opposing running game.
Playing in a minor league ballpark or not, the series against the Rays further exposed one of the Astros’ most glaring weaknesses thus far in 2025: They can’t control the run game. Like, at all.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a new development for Houston. There were shades of this issue last season, although Yainer Díaz and Victor Caratini were among the better tandems in catching would-be basestealers. According to Statcast, they caught five more base stealers than the expectation for an average catcher. However, the pitching staff struggled to keep opposing baserunners in check at various times.
However, this season has become more of a significant issue for the Astros. To be fair to Díaz and Caratini, the pitching staff’s inability to control the running game does impact them. It isn’t entirely their fault when they are often playing catch-up. However, some of the blame does fall on them. Neither side is completely without blame for these base-stealing issues. After all, the Astros have allowed 62 stolen bases, trailing only the Marlins with 79. Houston (6) ranks only slightly better than the Angels (5) in terms of caught stealing. It takes problems on both parties for this kind of regression compared to last season, even if they weren’t that great at it in the first place.
It isn’t a secret that the Astros’ pitchers have struggled with their delivery times, creating openings for opponents to create havoc on the basepaths. Tampa Bay, most recently, took noticeable advantage of this weakness. It also doesn’t help that neither Díaz nor Caratini is renowned for their defensive abilities. By exchange time, for example, Houston takes longer on average (0.74 seconds) than any other team. That was also a problem last season (0.70 seconds), but, again, Díaz, Caratini, and occasionally César Salazar were able to mitigate that aspect.
This post is relatively short as there is a lot of nuance within catching to account for. I’m not going to capture that today. But the recent series against the Rays again brought this issue renewed attention, and it deserved some discussion. I am curious to see how Dana Brown addresses the catcher position next offseason. Díaz, barring something unforeseen, isn’t going anywhere. But Caratini is a free agent after this season, and it seems certainly possible for the club to bring in a more defense-oriented catcher to back up Díaz. I know this was a frustration point for Joe Espada entering this season, so these baserunning and stealing issues can’t be pleasing for him and the team.