HOUSTON — Comparisons to Justin Verlander have confused what young Houston Astros starter Hunter Brown does best. Born and bred in Detroit, Brown mimicked the delivery of his boyhood idol. His four-seam fastball can reach the top rail at 98 mph, but Brown is not the strikeout seeker or swing-and-miss specialist Verlander became.
Last season, only four major-league starters generated groundballs at a better rate than Brown. At his best, the right-hander benefits from groundball contact early in counts. This April saw him at his worst and put his starting rotation spot in peril.
On the fifth day of May, Brown reached a last resort. He had not thrown or thought about a sinker since starring at Wayne State University in 2019. Spring training is the time to test out anything, but even then, Brown never brought out his forgotten pitch.
“Been five years, but said, ‘I’ll throw it against Seattle,’” Brown said.
Brown’s fortunes did not turn in an instant. The Mariners saw 11 sinkers, but still forced him from the game after 4 1/3 innings. Inefficiency and imprecise command plagued him, but a path to rescuing his season still took hold.
Right-handed hitters had a 1.008 OPS against Brown across his first six starts. Last season, they slugged .499 with 36 extra-base hits off of him. Brown and the team’s coaches noticed righties leaning over the plate with no fear for the inner half of their strike zone. Running a sinker in on their hands prevents it.
“I really do think it’s opening up, whether you talk about tunneling or just in their minds, that (the pitch) is going in,” Brown said. “Even my four-seam maybe has perceived cut. Cutter, slider, curveball and I wasn’t throwing very many changeups to righties, so I think having something that has that action might be opening it up.”
In four appearances since introducing his sinker, Brown has lowered his ERA from 9.78 to 7.06. He’s allowed nine earned runs across those 20 1/3 innings, stabilizing a season that threatened to spiral. His six innings of two-run ball on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Angels were the most encouraging example of what Brown can be.
“That’s the Hunter that we all know. He can be that type of pitcher. He’s got the stuff,” manager Joe Espada said.
“That sinker was a game-changer — throwing that stuff in on their hands and setting up the four-seamer up, the breaking ball.”
Got ’em pic.twitter.com/GMkSFOnARV
— Houston Astros (@astros) May 22, 2024
Brown’s potential is infinite. The inability to harness it can be infuriating. He brought a 4.12 ERA into last year’s All-Star break. He authored a fabulous first half that featured a 55.3 percent groundball rate. It plummeted to 48.3 percent during a disastrous second half and sat at 46.6 percent in 2024 before Wednesday’s start.
The Angels grounded out eight times against him. Half of the groundballs came from right-handed hitters, though Los Angeles’ lineup did feature four lefties. Brown threw his sinker a season-high 20 times despite it. Better feel for his changeup helped other parts of his arsenal play up, too.
“Hopefully I can keep building off these outings,” said Brown, who completed six innings for the second time all season. “I feel like lately I’ve been trying to take the positives and keep them rolling. Today there was some positives to take from this game, no doubt.”
Whether he will continue them as a starter is a mystery. Brown has remained in Houston’s rotation out of nothing but necessity. He is one of five healthy, unsuspended starters on the Astros’ 40-man roster with substantial major-league experience. Even if the team thought a move to the bullpen or a stint at Triple-A Sugar Land would be beneficial, the calendar and circumstances made either move impossible.
Houston played its 16th consecutive game on Wednesday. Another 13 in a row loom after Thursday’s off day, a stretch in which the club could conceivably stay with the six-man rotation it has carried for most of this month. Five off days in June follow, though, making a five-man setup more feasible.
José Urquidy will make his third minor-league rehab start on Friday at Triple-A. The team hopes he can build his pitch count to 80, after which he would be ready to rejoin the major-league rotation. Ronel Blanco will return from his 10-game foreign substance suspension to start Sunday’s game against the Oakland A’s, too.
At full strength, Houston’s five-man rotation will include Urquidy, Blanco, Verlander, Framber Valdez and Cristian Javier.
Keeping one of Brown or rookie Spencer Arrighetti on the major-league roster and stretched out as a swingman seems wise, especially given Javier’s unsettling return from the injured list. That Brown has already pitched out of the bullpen once may signal the team’s thinking. Brown relieved Javier during his first start back in Detroit on May 11, striking out seven across five innings of one-run ball.
“I think the numbers game would say we’re going to have to make a decision on somebody at some point,” pitching coach Josh Miller said. “I don’t want to say it’s him. I think his future is definitely bright as a starting pitcher in the big leagues. If he ends up in the bullpen for a spell this year, it could happen, and we expect the stuff to play well.”
Arrighetti has out-pitched Brown during his brief stay on the major-league roster, but he has made just 24 appearances above Double A including seven MLB starts. Arrighetti acquitted himself admirably as a big leaguer, but for his long-term development, it may behoove the Astros to demote him back to Sugar Land’s rotation for more consistent starts.
Brown awoke on Wednesday with the highest batting average on balls in play among all major-league pitchers with at least 30 innings. A 5.54 fielding independent pitching paired with a 7.06 ERA further suggests there is some poor luck, but painting Brown as purely a victim of misfortune is misguided. His 1.78 WHIP and 24 walks across 43 1/3 innings represent enough self-inflicted damage.
“He’s been BABIP’d to death in spots,” Miller said. “He’s let walks kind of bite him in the butt and allowed some long balls. That’s a difficult recipe to overcome and have success.”
“It was good that he’s grinded through some outings and gotten deeper in games and gave us a chance to win. That’s what you expect from a starter, but I think his ceiling and our expectations for him are much higher than that. He has the talent and we expect him to get closer to realizing it.”
Perhaps a sinker will start the ascent.
(Photo of Brown: Troy Taormina / USA Today)
