HOUSTON — Ronel Blanco is the perfect story for an imperfect season: He’s a swingman blossoming into a bona fide starter before baseball’s very eyes. Where the Houston Astros would be without him is a depressing thought.
Whether they can expect this emergence to continue is complicated. Blanco ended his first half with dominant outings but signs of diminishing stuff. Success in spite of it invites at least some hope for a harmless journey into the uncharted territory awaiting him.
Guaranteeing it is impossible, which intensifies the Astros’ urgent need for reinforcements in its starting rotation at the July 30 trade deadline, if only to give Blanco the breather this ballclub couldn’t afford across its first 96 games.
“He’s starting to be one of those guys that you’re counting the days for him to be on the mound because you’re getting a good chance to win the game,” manager Joe Espada said. “He has been one of our stars in this first half. We would not be in this position if it wasn’t for the job he’s done.”
The Astros won 13 of Blanco’s 18 first-half starts, matching the number they won in games started by Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez. Three of the five losses saw Blanco allow three earned runs or fewer, including Sunday’s 4-2 setback against the Texas Rangers.
Blanco retired the final 12 Texas batters he faced, but received little support from a lineup that stranded seven baserunners and finished 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. He matched Max Scherzer’s magnificence for the four innings they dueled, another accomplishment for a pitcher who arrived to spring training anonymous and is now anything but.
“He’s been unbelievable,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “He’s meant so much. Obviously he’s won a lot of games for us, but he’s putting up quality innings all the time. He’s been great.”
Ronel Blanco, Dirty 83mph Changeup. 👌 pic.twitter.com/4QKB1q9lbt
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 10, 2024
Blanco did not become a full-time starter until last spring. He’s never thrown more than 125 1/3 innings in a season as a professional. Sunday’s start brought him to 109 frames after Houston’s first 96 games, a workload the club couldn’t curtail even if it wanted. Its 40-man roster contains just four other healthy starters. One of them, Jake Bloss, only returned from the injured list on Thursday.
Off days in April and June allowed the Astros to build in some breathers for Blanco. His first six starts featured at least one extra day of rest. Incurring a 10-game suspension in May for violating the sport’s foreign substance policy also provided a reprieve that he would’ve never received otherwise.
Five of Blanco’s nine starts after the suspension came on four days of rest, including Sunday’s against the Rangers. He failed to finish six innings in three of them. Blanco’s ERA in those five starts? 4.97. A 4.42 FIP accompanying Blanco’s 2.56 season ERA already suggests there’s some regression looming,
“The body is recovering a lot better,” Blanco said through an interpreter. “I think it’s recovering very well. I felt 100 percent. I know I didn’t have the extra day of rest, but I thought I felt good and recovered to a good spot. I think my body is recovering better now.”
A five-start sample should not cause alarm or suggest that Blanco is unable to succeed on four days of rest, but it does demonstrate the benefits of maneuvering his schedule for maximum efficiency.
As Houston’s pitching staff is currently constructed, that is impossible. Verlander only resumed throwing off a mound on Sunday morning, tossing 25 pitches in a light bullpen session at Minute Maid Park that Espada deemed “really good.”
The manager then acknowledged it is “too premature” to even begin predicting when Verlander could make a minor-league rehab assignment. Luis Garcia’s comeback from Tommy John surgery has stalled, but he hasn’t been shut down from throwing. Lance McCullers Jr. has been shut down, prompting wonder if he’ll even return this season from flexor tendon surgery.
Houston has exhausted almost all of its starting pitching depth at the upper minor leagues, putting the onus on general manager Dana Brown to seek outside help as the trade deadline looms. If staring at his roster doesn’t reinforce the need, a glance at the radar gun might.
Blanco averaged 93.4 mph with his four-seam fastball during his first 16 starts. During the 17th on Tuesday, it dropped to 92.1 mph. Blanco still scattered two runs and struck out seven across seven innings, albeit against an awful Miami Marlins lineup.
On Sunday, Blanco’s fastball sat at 92.6 mph. Of the 36 four-seamers he threw, just seven were called strikes. The Rangers took 16 swings against it and did not whiff once.
“I really haven’t focused on the velocity of my fastball at the moment,” Blanco said. “I’m trying to focus on getting results with it. I think in the second half, the velocity will be back, but I’m just trying to be consistent and make good pitches with the fastball.”
When Blanco fell behind 3-0 against Josh Smith in the first inning, it forced him to throw something in the strike zone. Smith smacked the 92.3 mph fastball into the second deck for a two-run homer, the lone blemish of Blanco’s afternoon.
Velocity is not the sole indicator of effectiveness. If it was, Blanco would’ve gotten beaten up in his last two starts. Instead, he surrendered four earned runs across 13 innings. The continued effectiveness of his slider and changeup, coupled with the deception in his delivery, can mask the drop.
“Every pitch comes out on the same tunnel,” Espada said. “His fastball, slider, changeup all look the same until the ball enters the zone. Hitters are committed to that one pitch and, all of a sudden, he’s either going below the zone with the changeup or away from the barrel with the slider. He’s got ways to be deceptive with the stuff he has. He’s been able to maintain that command and control of his pitches for the entire season.”
Half of his 36 sliders on Sunday either generated a whiff or were called a strike. Of the 18 swings Texas took against his slider, 12 were whiffs. Entering the game, Baseball Savant assigned Blanco’s slider a run value of 11. Only two major-league pitchers had a higher one: Tanner Houck and Chris Sale.
Houck and Sale both made the All-Star team. Blanco should have, but fell victim to Major League Baseball’s representation rules and, perhaps, lingering animus from the aforementioned foreign substance suspension.
Still, only five starters finished the first half with a lower ERA. None allowed a lower batting average than Blanco’s .169 mark.
“The most important thing is that I’ve been able to contribute to this team and help this team win,” Blanco said. “That’s the thing I’m most proud of.”
(Photo of Ronel Blanco: Troy Taormina / USA Today)
