An old farm hand finally makes his debut
Long ago in West Africa, there was a ruthless warlord named General Mosquito. He was the undisputed leader of his faction until he encountered his arch-nemesis, General Mosquito Spray. Ironically, after a rather bloody battle, the Mosquito vanquished Mosquito Spray.
Every time the Astros and Braves play, I am reminded of this matchup: two heavyweights with unique and, to some, controversial nicknames battling it out for supremacy. Unfortunately, tonight, the Astros played the role of General Mosquito Spray.
In what seems to be a pattern, the Astros again wasted many opportunities at the plate, going 0-6 with RISP. In the bottom of the third, Jake Meyers hit a leadoff double to the gap between left and center. Altuve, with a 3-1 count, expanded the zone and fouled off ball four. On the next pitch, Altuve was run up on a pitch that appeared to be an inch inside. Altuve had a great at-bat, but the good results didn’t follow; this looks like a microcosm for the season so far. The Astros stranded Meyers on third.
Hunter Brown had an excellent bounce-back start after his abysmal performance last week. One of his few blemishes was a controversial home run in the top of the second.
You can make the call, but it was close enough that you can’t be mad. For the first six innings, Hunter Brown looked excellent, generating 11 swings and misses, 3 strikeouts, and only one walk. The paucity of hard-hit balls allowed was even more encouraging, a marked difference from last week. In the seventh, Brown would run into some trouble, though. He surrendered a groundball double down the third base line to lead the inning off. In the next AB, Brown had Matt Olson on the ropes with two strikes, but Olson laid off a few tough pitches to draw the walk. Ozuna drew a four-pitch walk on the next AB, and that was Brown’s night.
Shawn Dubin came into the game with the bases loaded and no outs but would escape by only allowing one run. The score was 2-0 going into the bottom of the seventh.
To lead off the seventh, Jeremy Pena hit a 400-foot flyout to centerfield; it would have been a homer in 7/30 ballparks, but the Juicebox was not one of them. The Astros went down in order in the 7th and 8th
In the top of the ninth, with the bases loaded and one out, Shawn Dubin gave up a pop fly that, apparently, touched the outside part of the foul line and bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double. With the game in the balance, Espada wisely challenged, but the call on the field stood, making the score 4-0.
The most noteworthy part of the game came when it was out of reach. After seven years in the minor leagues, Forest Whitely finally made his big league debut. With runners on second and third, Forest gave up a two-run double; baseball is a mean mistress. The next batter was Acuna. Jr, a fellow top 10 prospect in 2018, and Whitley hit him. Harris II hit a hard line drive to Tucker, and Riley walked to force a two-out, bases-loaded match-up between Olson and Whitely.
Olson hit a lazy pop-up to Center, ending the threat, but the damage was done. Score: Braves 6, Astros 0.
Outside of Mark Appel, Forest Whitley is probably one of the most disappointing prospects the Astros have had in the past 20 years. As a 20-year-old in AA, he showed enough promise to be compared to hall-of-famers like Clayton Kershaw. Seeing him finally make his MLB debut at 26 was a weird thing to witness. On the one hand, you have to credit the guy for pushing through adversity, but on the other, you can’t help but wonder what could have been if he had stayed healthy.
Tucker led off the bottom of the ninth with a low-leverage bomb to right field. After two outs, Pena hit a double and was driven in via a pinch-hit single by Dubon. The Astro’s efforts in the ninth may not have led to a victory, but they forced Snitker to bring in Raisel Iglesias to get the final out. Final score: Braves six, Astros two.
Observations:
It sucks to watch the team lose, but Baseball is a game with a large delta between a team’s performance quality and results. In basketball, almost every action is inputted into the final score and there are so many possessions that the lucky bounces have a better chance of evening out. In any given baseball game, many of the good things that happen are not reflected in the score. A double with nobody on and two outs takes as much skill as one with the bases loaded, but one event is worth at least two runs and the other is probably worth zero. A hard-hit ball that goes right to the centerfielder takes just as much skill as a hard-hit ball that finds a gap.
Hunter Brown was amazing; although he will probably experience more growing pains this season, seeing him get back on the right track is great. The bullpen pitched better than their line would suggest, but it is clear that the Astros lack depth in that area.
The offense was terrible tonight, striking out ten times, only walking once, and overall not hitting the ball very hard, but for the most part, the offense has been pretty solid this year. There is a lot of luck in baseball, and it takes time for the cream to rise to the top. By wRC+, a context-neutral offensive metric, the Astros are one of the best offenses in baseball, but because they have hit so poorly with runners in scoring position, they haven’t scored as many runs as they should have. Hopefully, their luck will change.
This team is not as good as the 2019 or 2022 Astros, but it isn’t this bad. The pitching looks like it is stabilizing, and there is just too much talent on offense to not score a bunch of runs. I am not saying fans cannot be upset, but it is only April 16th, and they are only 3.5 games back.
Keep your heads up, guys. In football terms, we are midway through the first possession of week two.
What do you think? Are the Astros just going to have to accept their new role as General Mosquito Spray? Or are you optimistic about them turning it around? Comment below!