Houston Astros Rising Ace Off to One of Best Starts in Franchise History

The Houston Astros have surprised some people with the amount of success they have had during the 2025 MLB regular season.

Despite losing a lot of talent in the offseason, they entered play on June 21 with a 44-32 record, which was second best in the American League behind the Detroit Tigers.

They currently hold a 5.0 game lead over the Seattle Mariners in the AL West race as well.

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The Astros overcame yet another slow start out of the gate, but regained their footing rather quickly.

They have had to deal with a ton of injuries and some of their key players have not performed up to expectations, but it hasn’t slowed them down from racking up wins.

One of the reasons they are finding so much success is their dominance on the mound.

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Houston has several hurlers who are performing at an incredibly high level, including emerging ace, Hunter Brown.

From mid-May through the end of the 2024 campaign, the 2019 fifth-round pick really began rounding into form. The only pitchers with a lower ERA in the MLB from that point on were Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves, who won the National League Rookie of the Year and NL Cy Young Awards, respectively.

Brown was stellar for that stretch and the positive momentum has been carried into the 2025 campaign.

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He is going to be in the mix to start the 2025 MLB All-Star Game for the American League team and should receive consideration for the AL Cy Young award with how well he has pitched.

Through his first 15 starts of the campaign, Brown has a 1.88 ERA across 91 innings with 109 strikeouts. His ERA, 213 ERA+ both lead the AL, while his 5.5 H/9 is the best in the Majors.

In fact, this has been one of the most dominant starts in franchise history, as shared by Chandler Rome of The Athletic on X.

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Through the first 15 starts of a campaign, Brown’s 1.88 ERA is the fifth lowest. Only Nolan Ryan with a 1.37 ERA in 1981, Roger Clemens in 2005 with a 1.51, Justin Verlander in 2018 with a 1.61 and Larry Dierker with a 1.80 in 1970 had lower.