In a Major League Baseball season defined by great starting pitching, the Houston Astros might have the best one-two combination in the game in Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez.
After breaking out in 2024, the 26-year-old Brown has taken his game to another level this year, emerging as a true Cy Young Award contender with a 2.21 ERA and a terrific 129/32 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The 31-year-old Valdez, meanwhile, has continued to be one of the most consistent starters in baseball, turning in his fifth straight season with an ERA below 3.50 and once again ranking near the top of the leaderboard in ground ball rate.
The combination of Valdez and Brown has helped the Astros vault to the top of the American League West, but the rest of the rotation has been a mixed bag. Rookies Colton Gordon and Ryan Gusto have been largely unimpressive, as has Lance McCullers Jr., who has posted a 5.82 ERA in his first nine starts since 2019. Journeyman Brandon Walter has displayed a tremendous strike-throwing ability with just two walks over in his first 40.2 innings, but a 1.8 HR/9 rate points to impending regression.
The Astros have been forced to turn to these uncertain arms in large part due to an avalanche of injuries, which has become a common occurrence for the pitching staff in recent years. Christian Javier and Luis Garcia, standouts during their 2022 championship run, have still not returned from Tommy John Surgery, and they have been joined on the shelf by Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wesneski, who have also succumbed to the procedure. Spencer Arrighetti has also been limited to just two starts with a fractured thumb, but he has fortunately begun ramping up towards a second-half return.
Though the Astros may be able to piece together a rotation with their collection of unproven youngsters and veterans returning from injury, it is clear they could use some more stability in the back of their rotation. This is why ESPN’s Jeff Passan identified Kansas City Royals workhorse Seth Lugo as their best match at the trade deadline.
“So even if the cost is heavy and eats into a farm system that's among the worst in MLB, targeting a pitcher of Lugo's ilk would give them among the nastiest postseason rotations in the game and further entrench the Astros as a force,” Passan wrote. “Lugo's peripherals suggest he's in line for regression but even if his ERA does jump from its current 2.67 mark, Lugo's nine-pitch mix gives him the flexibility to adjust in-game -- a luxury shared by only a handful of starters in the game.”
Since moving to the rotation full-time in 2023, Lugo has been one of the most durable and dependable starters in all of baseball, posting a 3.11 ERA in 76 starts. As Passan points out, Lugo’s stuff doesn’t jump off the page, but his deep pitch mix and veteran experience allow him to keep hitters off balance and runs off the board. At the very least, he can help provide some stability to a volatile Astros rotation for the rest of the regular season and slot in as one of baseball’s best Game 3 starters come October.
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