For a team in a position where every win matters, continuing to hand away games simply cannot continue.
At some point, every branch will break. The branch carrying Mike Burrows on the Astros broke yesterday.
Staked to a 6-1 lead, Burrows proceeded to hand it all back in the 3rd inning, giving up a 5 spot as fans (and likely teammates) watched in horror as Burrows continues to get banged around the yard. He wasn’t fooling anyone, his manager Joe Espada admitted in the post game, lamenting Burrows inability
to get a swing and miss with either his fastball or his changeup.
Burrows fastball has been the stuff of legend this season, for all the wrong reasons. It has been among the worst pitches in baseball this season. The league is batting .309 with an incredible .721 SLG vs Burrows 4-seam. He did not get a single swing and miss on 18 4-seamers yesterday against the Nationals. That is astounding. Astoundingly awful.
After 94.2 IP this season, Burrows is now 4-9 with a 5.99 ERA. That is the highest ERA for any Astros pitcher after 50 innings in the Astros uniform ever. Worse than Colton Gordon (5.95). Worse that Frances Martes (5.80). Worse than the Traitorous Rat Fink who shall not be named (5.22).
This isn’t “early struggles” anymore. This is broken.
That doesn’t mean Burrows cannot be fixed. As Espada so often reminds us, he is a young pitcher, and his stuff is there. The Astros Lab, which has made countless pitchers far more effective in a short period of time, has thus far been unable to solve the riddle of Burrows.
This far into the season, those riddles need to be solved in the minors.
Houston cannot in good conscience continue to send Burrows out every 5th to 6th day, and look the rest of the team in the yes and say they are committed to winning. Burrows is now a reclamation project.
Perhaps if this were not the 3rd straight year in which the Astros pitching staff had been beset by a plethora of injuries, things would be a little different. Maybe he would feel less pressure. Alas, that isn’t the reality in Houston.
To have seen Burrows be so thoroughly dominant in Spring Training and so abjectly awful in the regular season is also a point of frustration.
Yes, there was a point in time where Burrows was grading as an “unlucky” pitcher. The issue with that is he would give up an unlucky hit or two, and then groove one that got blasted into the seats with alarming regularity.
Where is the bulldog? Where is the desire to battle back?
Too often it seems Burrows simply melts down when there are men on base. It happened again yesterday, in the 3rd inning when he surrendered 5 runs without recording an out. He then allowed a leadoff homer in the 5th, and loaded the bases with one out before being lifted.
He put 11 men on base in 4.1 innings, he also committed an error.
By the time the 5th inning was over, Burrows allowed 10 runs, 7 earned. The Astros 6-1 lead had become a 12-6 deficit, one they would not be able to overcome in a 12-11 loss.
6-1 leads should be automatic.
This was the 10th start in which Burrows allowed at least 4 earned runs. He’s made 17 total starts. That is nearly 60% of his starts, the Astros need at least 5 runs to win. Houston is 2-8 is those 10 starts.
The Astros have been patient enough. Espada continues to speak in a coddling manner of him, always mentioning he is a young pitcher, and they need to put him in good situations. Is a 6-1 lead not a good situation?
The time has come and the time is now.
Cristian Javier is on the active roster. Lance McCullers Jr. and Ronel Blanco are both making what could be their final rehab appearances tonight for Sugar Land, in which they could both be looking at 70-75 pitches (they each threw 60 pitches in their last rehab starts). Ethan Pecko was just named PCL pitcher of the month after posting a 2.48 ERA in 29 IP with a 20/6 K/BB ratio.
All of them are better options than Burrows. Considering the Astros have relied on pitchers coming back from injury in the second half each of the past two seasons with suboptimal results, it is likely important to assess what you can expect from McCullers and Blanco (and later Hayden Wesneski, who isn’t far behind either of them) so that they don’t potentially make that mistake again this season. Houston needs to assess it’s needs at starting pitcher over the next few weeks leading to the trade deadline, because it already knows it needs a lefthanded outfield bat.
Houston has shown there is a limit to it’s patience with players they have invested in (time or money) this season when they recently demoted CF Jake Meyers. Meyers has been on the team since 2021, and they have tolerated awful offense from him before. That patience finally wore out, and centerfield has been turned over to the platoon of Taylor Trammell and Brice Matthews.
They need to do the same now with Burrows. Cut your losses. Quarterize the wound. Get him right at Sugar Land.
Maybe he comes back later in the year. Maybe he comes back next year. Maybe the deal winds up being a bust.
Should Mike Burrows be optioned is no longer a maybe. It’s a necessity. Time is up.
