Pitching looks like a major early issue for the Houston Astros.
The 2026 Major League Baseball season is underway, and the Houston Astros have one series in the books. If you’re someone who feels like the window of being a premier title contender is still open, you were probably in the minority to being with, but there isn’t much to take away from the last four days to where you should feel like you’re on the right side of the debate.
Sure, the Astros salvaged two wacky, high scoring wins on Saturday and Sunday, to come away with a split. However, the fact of the matter is that the Astros have yet to get anything close to resembling a quality start, and their alleged closer , Bryan Abreu, pitched an inning and a third and gave up four earned runs. In other words, the way the Astros are getting it done, for now, is probably not sustainable against actual decent MLB teams. Hey, it’s four games. It’s one turn through the rotation, but so far, this feels like a team that will be paddling upstream all season. For now, here are four thoughts on the Astros’ opening weekend, one for each game they played against the Angels:I think we can all agree that Astros are going nowhere if Yordan Alvarez only plays in 48 games this season, as he did last season. Alvarez go off to a slow start in spring training, but things picked up over his last dozen or so plate appearances, with lots of hard contact. That carried over to his first play appearance of the season, which would have been a towering 400+ foot home run, had it not ricocheted off the rafters and landed foul. While the outcome, determined by ground rules, wasn’t what Astro fans wanted, the power display was great to see. Alvarez punctuated things with a laser of a home run on Friday night. Mike Trout came into this season 34 years old and having missed 387 games over the last four seasons Well, the reports of Mike Trout’s demise, as it turns out, may have been greatly exaggerated. In the opener, he hit a solo home run for the first run of the game. On Friday, he was vintage Trout, going 3-4 with a home run. On Saturday, he was 1-3 and scored two runs. On Sunday, he started a four-run rally with a base hit. He is still Mike Trout.I am a huge fan of the new Automated Ball Strike system, where teams can challenge the home plate umpire’s calls as many times as they want until the team gets two challenges wrong. It’s a fast adjudication system, usually within seven seconds or so. It’s great! The only problem? The Astros suck at it so far, and Saturday was the perfect display of their ABS ineptitude. Jose Altuve and Cam Smith, two of the more suspect free swingers on the team, wasted the Astros two missed challenges by the fifth inning. The previous night, reliever Roddery Munoz challenged a call and lost, which is a huge no-no. Manager Joe Espada wants all ABS challenges on defense initiated by the catchers.There is no bringing back Framber Valdez. He’s a Detroit Tiger. The Astros could count on one thing for certain from Valdez every year — eating up about 200 innings. He threw six splendid innings in his Tiger debut. Unfortunately, the Astros first four starters of the season — Hunter Brown, Mike Burrows, Cristian Javier and Tasuya Imai — combined for just 17.2 innings, giving up 15 runs. Brown was the best of the four, allowing no runs but running up a pitch count of 102 pitches in 4.2 innings. Thus far, Valdez is missed. Sean Pendergast is a contributing freelance writer who covers Houston area sports daily in the News section, with periodic columns and features, as well. He also hosts the morning drive on SportsRadio...
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