almost nothing<\/a> offensively. That it is still blossoming into one of baseball\u2019s best defensive units is important. Teams with depth deficiencies must maximize everything on the margins and search for every possible advantage. Matthews, and the rest of Houston\u2019s outfield, provides one on defense.<\/p>\nAccording to Baseball Savant, 34 major-league outfielders entered Sunday worth at least two outs above average. The Astros employ three of them: Matthews, reigning Gold Glove finalist Cam Smith and Jake Meyers. Smith\u2019s stupendous catch started an inning-ending double play Wednesday in Toronto helped preserve a tenuous two-run lead and secure that series win. Meyers has long been one of the sport\u2019s most underrated defensive center fielders.<\/p>\n
Among American League teams, only the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays have outfields worth more outs above average than the Astros. According to Sports Info Solutions, the Astros are turning 69.8 percent of balls hit in the air into outs. The major-league average is 67.9 percent. Just three outfields have a 70 percent conversion rate. For an Astros pitching staff that surrenders the third-highest fly-ball rate of any team in the sport, this matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the small, little plays just to give us an opportunity to hit or hand the baton to somebody else. It matters,\u201d Espada said Sunday. \u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to win games, we need contributions from everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rotation gets crowded<\/p>\n
Injured pitchers are permitted a maximum of 30 days on a minor-league rehab assignment. Cristian Javier made the first of his five rehab starts on June 3, meaning the Astros must decide what\u2019s next for the oft-absent right-hander by Friday.<\/p>\n
Javier needed 85 pitches to spin six scoreless innings for Triple-A Sugar Land on Saturday night. That he made the start at all signaled at least some uneasiness about Javier\u2019s readiness to rejoin the major-league rotation.<\/p>\n
Team officials had considered starting Javier during this weekend\u2019s series against the Tigers, but opted for a fifth minor-league start \u201cto work on some things that he\u2019s still working on,\u201d Espada said.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Javier\u2019s four-seam fastball sat at 91.8 mph \u2014 one mile per hour slower than his season average \u2014 but he still generated 11 swings and misses on the 30 swings taken against his fastball and changeup. Javier threw 47 percent of his pitches in the strike zone and, of the 15 balls in play he allowed, just three came off the bat at 95 mph or faster.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe threw the ball really, really well,\u201d Espada said Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
Other than to say \u201cwe\u2019re going to sit down and talk about what\u2019s next for him,\u201d Espada declined to divulge much about Javier\u2019s next steps. The right-hander is in the fourth season of a five-year, $64 million contract extension and is the second-highest paid starting pitcher on Houston\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n
That alone almost cements Javier\u2019s spot in Houston\u2019s major-league rotation \u2014 or at least ample runway to prove he deserves it. Because he pitched for Sugar Land on Saturday, Javier could start Friday\u2019s series opener against Tampa Bay on five days of rest.<\/p>\n
If he does, the Astros will confront a fascinating roster crunch. With two off days between now and the beginning of the All-Star break on July 13, the club might not need a six-man rotation, and the lack of roster flexibility within Houston\u2019s bullpen raises questions about whether a starter\u2019s roster spot could be in peril.<\/p>\n
Three members of Houston\u2019s bullpen have minor-league options: AJ Blubaugh, Bryan King and Miguel Ullola. King is the team\u2019s setup man and in no danger of a demotion.<\/p>\n
Blubaugh boasts a 3.52 ERA across 53 2\/3 innings \u2014 more than any other Astros reliever has thrown all season. Seventeen of Blubaugh\u2019s 33 outings have lasted two or more innings. His workload and efficiency have been invaluable, and demoting seems unlikely.<\/p>\n
Logic, then, suggests shipping Ullola back to Sugar Land after he received his first major-league call-up on Sunday. Perhaps another reliever is dealing with an injury that will require an IL stint and could open a roster spot for Javier.<\/p>\n
However, either of those options would leave Houston one reliever short in a bullpen that just shouldered a seismic workload during this seven-game road trip.<\/p>\n
A more practical solution might be to shift a starter to the bullpen for at least one trip through the rotation, similar to what the team did with Mike Burrows earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Burrows, who has a 5.48 ERA after 85 1\/3 innings, is scheduled to start Tuesday against the Minnesota Twins, so it stands to reason he wouldn\u2019t be available for another bullpen move.<\/p>\n
That could leave Spencer Arrighetti as the most viable option to switch, should Houston decide to do it. Arrighetti, who won American League Pitcher of the Month in May, has a 9.00 ERA across 25 innings in June. He surrendered eight runs and secured nine outs in Friday\u2019s loss to Detroit, after which the normally affable Arrighetti acknowledged he had few answers for his struggles.<\/p>\n
Arrighetti is scheduled to make his next start Friday, the same day Houston must make a decision about Javier. The club could start Arrighetti on Friday and Javier on Saturday, but would it be beneficial for Javier to go a full week between starts? Ditto for ace Hunter Brown, who in this scenario would have his next start pushed back to Sunday.<\/p>\n
Bear in mind, too, that Arrighetti and Burrows have minor-league options remaining. That could perhaps create more pressure for Burrows to have a strong outing Tuesday, or create an interesting conversation around Arrighetti.<\/p>\n
Teng gets a \u2018breather\u2019<\/p>\n
The Astros demoted Kai-Wei Teng to Triple-A Sugar Land on Sunday. That means three of general manager Dana Brown\u2019s six offseason pitching additions have either been sent to the minor leagues or taken off the Astros\u2019 40-man roster. Combined, the sextet has posted a 5.41 ERA in 241 innings.<\/p>\n
In a season where optics matter more than most, that\u2019s a problem. Working in the final year of his contract amplifies any of Brown\u2019s successes and failures. For the season\u2019s first two months, he could tout Teng as an unquestioned success.<\/p>\n
Teng\u2019s past five outings should not change that. Before them, he boasted a 2.57 ERA and separated himself as a trustworthy arm capable of throwing multiple innings.<\/p>\n
Teng\u2019s recent stumble probably could\u2019ve been foreseen as a result of an increased workload that arose out of necessity. Stretching Teng out as a starter is something Brown envisioned upon acquiring him, but doing so during the season in response to injuries is a difficult task. That Teng could even accomplish it and have some success speaks to his value and adaptability.<\/p>\n
Teng, who has started and relieved in his professional career, threw a career-high 136 1\/3 innings with Double-A Richmond in 2022. He hasn\u2019t thrown more than 86 innings in any season since 2023. It\u2019s not even July, and Teng has already thrown 64 innings this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say there is some fatigue,\u201d Teng said Saturday through an interpreter, \u201cbut it\u2019s still manageable.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Espada, part of the Astros\u2019 rationale in optioning Teng to the minors was to give him a \u201cde-load\u201d and a \u201cbreather.\u201d Teng is still going to pitch, but the team is still discussing exactly what that will look like and whether it will be as a starter or reliever.<\/p>\n
In whatever role, expect Teng to be on a strict innings limit and pitch count for his next few outings at Triple-A Sugar Land. The goal is to refresh Teng and then return him to a major-league pitching staff that needs his skillset.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 Bat met ball and, under his breath, Astros manager Joe Espada muttered an expletive. The Detroit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,2583,54,4,594],"class_list":["post-738222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-tigers","tag-baseball","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-detroittigers","tag-houston-astros","tag-mlb","tag-tigers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116831166391848326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}