April 20-22 Houston Series - Preview and Review

[JCA-CrystalCity]

This thread will focus on the games played this weekend. Posts about the 2019 ceremonies should go in https://www.wnff.net/index.php?topic=41296.0

Parker will get his second start on Sunday. Davey says the plan is to go start to start (I guess among Parker, Adon, and Rutledge) for that slot as Gray recovers. Rotation for the Houston series will be Gore Friday, Williams Saturday, and Parker Sunday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/04/17/jake-irvin-nationals-dodgers-road-trip/

Goochland's greatest contribution to MLB, Justin Verlander, will make his season debut on Friday, followed by Ronel Blanco (he of the season debut no hitter) and Cristian Javier. 

Texas was able to get to Blanco for a couple hits and 2 runs in his last start on  4/13, but his prior two outings he gave up 1 hit over 15 innings, coming close to a Johnny Vander Meer.

Six nights after throwing a no-hitter at home against Toronto in his first start of the season, Blanco held the Texas Rangers without a hit until Adolis García had a clean single up the middle with two outs in the sixth of Houston’s 3-1 win Sunday night. Blanco then retired Evan Carter and was done.
...
Blanco is the first pitcher in baseball’s modern era (since 1901) to allow one or no hits over at least 15 innings in the first two appearances of a season, according to Stathead. The only other pitcher since 1978 with that kind of stretch over any two-game span was Max Scherzer, who allowed one hit over 18 innings for Washington in June 2015.

And since the expansion era began in 1961, Blanco is the first pitcher to throw 14 2/3 innings at the start of a season before allowing a hit, according to Elias Sports. Those 44 outs recorded are nine more than the previous mark that had been matched three times.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/2024/04/07/astros-blanco-bid/a9d614e8-f55b-11ee-9506-c8544e5c9d86_story.html

Blanco is a bit walk prone the last 2 starts - 7 in 12 innings, with 9 Ks.

It will be interesting to see how Verlander does coming off of right shoulder inflammation. He's coming off a couple of rehab starts, so  I'm assuming its worked out and he can do a full Verlander start.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/astros/2024/04/17/justin-verlander-houston-astros-injury/73360745007/

Javier is operating at his customary deadly level - 1.54 ERA / 3.63 FIP over 4 starts and 23.1 IP. K% is a tick down from his career levels (18.9% vs. 27.7%), and his BB% is inflated (11.6%) resulting in his worst (K-BB)% (7.4%, vs. 14.1% in 2023 and a career 17.9%). Giving up medium contact to center on flies, which explains the low BABIP and the low AVG against.

I'll add that 3 righties I think feeds into the Nats strengths - Abrams, Winker., Garcia. FWIW, Gallo has had less than his usual "success" against Houston over the years - 327 PAs, .598 OPS, 13 HR.

[nobleisthyname]

Nice summary of the Houston starters. Despite the low ERA Javier doesn't seem to have been that sharp with those K and BB numbers. Looks like he's primarily benefitted from avoiding any homers. He only has a 2.6% HR/FB rate right now vs his career 10.6% rate (league average was 12.7% last season).

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Nice summary of the Houston starters. Despite the low ERA Javier doesn't seem to have been that sharp with those K and BB numbers. Looks like he's primarily benefitted from avoiding any homers. He only has a 2.6% HR/FB rate right now vs his career 10.6% rate (league average was 12.7% last season).

ERA /FIP / xFIP shows the story on him maybe getting better results than expected. xFIP, which normalizes the HR rate to MLB average, is 5.38, or nearly 4 runs higher than his ERA. FIP, which uses his actual HR rate, is 3.63 due to the combo of his unpunished BBs (which should increase his FIP) while still giving him the benefit of HR suppression.

I think Verlander vs Gore is the name match up, Parker vs. Javier is the one with potential for a surprising result, while  Williams vs Blanco looks like 2 guys on an unexpected roll. If you had Trevor Williams as having a better K-BB% and a better FIP than Cristian Javier when you were projecting this match up back in West Palm, you are a savant.

[IanRubbish]

Houston seems to have done more advance scouting than any other Nats opponent.  They clearly knew to run the bases against our catchers, which they haven't done against other teams, and while less clear the foul balls might have been part of a strategy.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

In the Gore thread, I put a break down of the PAs that were 6 or more pitches for Gore last night. There were 6, including 3 in a 4  batter stretch (Diaz, McCormack, Abreu, with Pena's 2 pitch PA after Diaz) where all the damage was done and drove up his pitch count. The other 3 long PAs were Tucker, Altuve, and Bregman. Altuve had 2 more 5 pitch PAs while Tucker teed off the big inning with the bloop opposite field double.

More or less, he got worked over by one of the great contact guys of this century and got beat by one of the least recognized stars in baseball. Obviously, Houston uses data and historically have used other ways to gain a hitting advantage, and they have players who take that info and use it. Atuve had an 8 pitch at bat that didn't go deeper than 1-2. That's just incredible contact skill, whatever way he got prepared for that PA.

Regarding Gore, his prior outing his fastball % was at a season high and he was incredibly effective. I don't know the final breakdown, but I recall during the game a breakdown that had him at about the same %, with a few more changes and a bit fewer sliders. I'm guessing they were watching for the fastball and just trying to spoil it if it was close to a strike. I'm not a pitching strategist (that's Doo's job), but I'm wondering if Gore will look at the tape and try to work in more secondaries next start, especially the change to get hitters off his fastball.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I love this observation by Ghost Mears at TalkNats.com.

After discussing how much of Houston's success was built on weak contact falling in their big rally (Tucker's dying quail double and McCormack's single for the 3rd run of the inning) vs Nats hard hit balls finding gloves, he attributes to Zim an observation about how part of the 2019 team's success was due to staying under control in big moments, vs how the Nats hitters handled 2 on, 1 out, 5-3 in the 9th.

The Nats just have to hope the luck turns in their favor. A prescient point that Ryan Zimmerman made before the 2019 postseason about getting some lucky bounces. With the Nats down by a score of 5-3 with two runners on-base and just one out, this was a signature walk-off spot — but the final two batters chased pitches and went down with two consecutive strikeouts to take a disappointing loss last night facing the same pitcher, Josh Hader, who they beat in the 2019 Wild Card game. In that game, Anthony Rendon didn’t chase pitches out of the zone and took his walk. Last night, Meneses and Nick Senzel chased their ways to Ks. Back to the field today with Trevor Williams on the mound.[/quuote]
https://www.talknats.com/2024/04/20/game-20-ring-day-for-the-fans/

[imref]

Byron Kerr:

Astros scratch RHP Cristian Javier due to neck discomfort.

RHP Hunter Brown will start vs Nats.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Load the lineup with lefties on top. CJ, Winker, Garcia, then Thomas. Could see Lane 3rd and Garcia 4th, but let's have Riley 5th, not 8th.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

This was a darn good series for the starting pitchers this series. Even in the Gore start, it was soft contact falling and extended ABs rather than poor pitching. 1 walk over 17 innings from Gore, Williams, and Parker.