Failure to launch
The Red Sox invited the Houston Astros to Fenway Park last week and what happened? Not a laser show. A sad, sad sweep.
Well, fresh off splitting a series against the Baltimore Orioles, a team easily better than these Houston Astros, the Sox look to do some winning. And in nine innings preferably. Not extra-inning buzzer beaters.
Has Tanner Houck been dominant since the season hit the halfway point? No. Has he been serviceable after some rough outings? Yeah. Since his 3.1 inning performance against the Yankees on July 5th, Houck has tossed 6.0 or more innings five times out of six. That other was a 6 run outing over 5.0 innings against the Texas Rangers. Overall that and ERA of 4.04 against a FIP of 5.13. Which is not great. And the Sox have only won one of these starts. But Houck allowed 3 runs or less is four of these outings. The bats should carry that. Two starts ago against the Astros, Tanner Houck gutted out 6.0 innings of one-run ball. Boston ended up losing 8-4 but truly can you hand that one to the starting pitcher?
Lefties eat up this lineup it seems and the Astros turned their junk diving for a starter into an ace. Yusei Kikuchi was mostly freely available talent, although the Astros were mocked a bit at how much they gave up at the deadline, but he’s now unhittable. In three starts since joining the Astros batters are hitting just .167/.242/.300 against the southpaw. That’s a 2.70 ERA / 2.92 FIP. Over the previous 22 starts? .272/.319/.431 with an ERA of 4.75 against a 3.66 FIP. That includes the Red Sox knocking him around for 5 runs in 4.0 innings in June. Here’s to more of that!
First pitch is at 8:10 PM ET on WEEI and NESN.