Five summers ago, Hunter Brown motioned his new catcher, César Salazar, to the mound.
Salazar was confused: Brown had been dealing, shutting out the Midland RockHounds under an unbearably hot sun that July for four innings.
“He just grabs his arm and starts rubbing it on my chest protector,” Salazar told Chron. “He’s like: ‘Dude, my arm is just so soaked in sweat.'”
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The story has become an inside joke between them, as they find it hilarious to reminisce about the time in 2021 when Brown was just another player trying to succeed in Double-A baseball. It takes them back to those afternoons spent playing at 1 p.m. in Midland, Texas.
Five summers later, the guy wiping sweat off his arm in Double-A is walking onto the mound as the Houston Astros’ Opening Day starter on Thursday.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be pitching out of the bullpen or starting when I got here,” Brown said on Monday, March 23. “So now, it’s me and the ball. Game 1. That’s a change in itself.”
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With Framber Valdez moving on to the Detroit Tigers, Hunter Brown is ready to step in and lead the Houston Astros’ pitching staff in 2026.
Tim Warner/Getty Images
Brown debuted as a starter in September 2022 and made one additional start before moving to the bullpen for the remaining five games of the regular season. During the Astros’ 2022 World Series run, he made three appearances in relief. In 2023, he started 29 of 31 games, finishing the season with a 5.09 ERA. However, the beginning of the 2024 season did not look promising, as he allowed 11 hits and recorded just two outs in a road game against Kansas City that April.
“I was going around and I finally got to ‘Tuve. I said, Hey Altuve, how would you hit off me?” Brown recalled to Dallas Braden on MLB’s Slab Lab. “Oh, papi, easy, fastballs away. Look hard away. And I’m like, God its that easy, man? He didn’t even think about it. It is that easy.”
Altuve, a nine-time All-Star, clearly knows his stuff. But Brown still needed a second opinion, so he hit up Alex Bregman.
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“I talked to Breggy [Bregman] and he was like, ‘it doesn’t even have to be good. You’ve got to throw something that can get in on some righties,'” Brown said to Braden. “And I was getting crushed by righties. I was doing fine against lefties. I had the curveball; it was average, but big league average is pretty good at times. I went into the bullpen that next day, told the pitching coaches, I’m going to start throwing sinkers. They’re like, oh, really? So I threw all sinkers. I’m like, ‘Hey guys, I got nothing to lose. I’m sitting at a nine [ERA] right now.’”
The sinker pitch, something that he hadn’t thrown since college, was added to his arsenal and put on trial during a May middle relief stint on the road in Detroit, his hometown. The Michigan native gave up just one run over five innings while tallying seven strikeouts in the outing.
Brown’s been one of the best pitchers in the league since.
“I think after that game, he just flipped a different switch,” Former Astros pitcher Ryan Pressly told Chron on July 3, 2025. “He just kind of became a different person in between the lines, not in the clubhouse, because the best part about it was: even after that rough outing, it was still the same Hunter…He was still reeling from that start and trying to figure things out, but he was still going to pick everyone else up. I think he’s definitely growing up in front of everybody’s eyes.”
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From May 5 through the end of the season, Brown had three more rough starts but bounced back impressively, finishing with an 11-5 record and posting a 2.51 ERA over his final 147 innings. His strong performance helped the Astros secure a spot in the postseason. This season was particularly challenging because his idol and the clubhouse leader, Justin Verlander, was left off the American League Wild Card roster due to lingering injuries that affected his performance.
Hunter Brown led all Houston Astros pitchers with 20 strikeouts during Spring Training, as the club’s ace enters his fifth season with the team.
Brown was set to start the elimination game against his hometown team, the Detroit Tigers, in the second game. He struck out nine batters and allowed just one run over 5 and 2/3 innings, but the Astros ended up losing the game. Verlander would be traded in the offseason, leaving Framber Valdez as the only pitcher better than Brown, who began the 2025 season as the Opening Day starter.
But Brown looked like the team’s ace. He posted an MLB’s best 28-inning scoreless streak, the fifth longest ever in Astros’ history. He was named an All-Star and finished third in the American League Cy Young voting with a 2.43 ERA.
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Valdez signed with the Tigers this offseason, leaving Brown next in line to be the club’s next ace.
Now, Brown’s confidence in his progress oozes through his personality. The caffeine-addicted, overly competitive guy is the life of the clubhouse. He’s joking about pitching with the roof open, giving his two cents on the Detroit Lions’ trade of David Montgomery and speaking into multiple microphones from the dugout after his bullpen.
“He walks with an aura,” Salazar said. “We call it a ‘Caballo.’ When you’re in the room and Hunter walks in: you can tell that he walks in.”
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Brown never doubted he would get here, but he also keeps his excitement measured while appreciating how far he’s come.
“Early in your career, you haven’t been to all the ballparks in the league, you don’t know how the intros are going to go, little nuances that you’re just aware of now that you’ve been through, so you have that experience,” Brown said. “Nothing surprising, you just feel a little more comfortable. You’re going to see the smoke and the fireworks when they introduce the lineup and stuff like that. Just a little bit: you’ve been through it, so you feel a little bit better about it.”