Spencer Arrighetti continues to progress in our front of our eyes. I mean, outside of his first career start against the Royals, the rookie right-hander hasn’t pitched that bad, especially in May. Has he been great? Nope. If the pitching depth situation was better, Arrighetti is undoubtedly starting games for Sugar Land. But as a fifth or sixth starter for an organization not exactly deep in extra pitchers at the moment, you can do worse. After all, beggars can’t be choosers.
But the progression Arrighetti has shown in recent weeks inspires some hope that the pitching staff will continue at least a slightly upward trajectory, if not better. After all, depth remains an issue and José Urquidy leaving his rehab start early on Friday with another forearm issue doesn’t help matters. Any progression shown by Arrighetti and Hunter Brown is a big win for the Astros. And the former’s start against the A’s was a step in the right direction, as he held the opposition to three runs across five innings, striking out seven while walking three. Again, was he great? Nah. But that was a good enough start to at least keep the Astros in the game, at least in theory.
Well, Houston was in the game against Oakland, but the lineup didn’t exactly held up its end of the deal. JP Sears limited the Astros to a lone run across six innings — via Kyle Tucker’s sacrifice fly in the sixth inning — while allowing only two hits and a lone walk to Yordan Alvarez. Houston would tack on a couple of more hits, but it didn’t do much. The A’s bullpen finished the job, with Mason Miller striking out all three Astros he faced. In other news, water is wet. The lineup fell flat. There wasn’t much in terms of optimism. This game didn’t leave much of an impression on me other than waiting for something substantial to happen. By the way, I’m still waiting.
On the plus side, the Mariners and Rangers also lost their Saturday afternoon games, so the Astros didn’t lose any ground in the AL West. At least there’s that. While the start of the season was dreadful and the recent rebound has only seen the club improved to 23-29 during Memorial Day weekend, the rest of the division has also been nearly as dreadful in recent weeks. Not the worst development in a season full of suboptimal updates, at least from an Astros’ point of view
