Hunter Brown Continues Strong Start to Season

Hunter Brown continued his sizzling start to the season on Tuesday night with six shutout innings against the St. Louis Cardinals. He also extended his scoreless inning streak to 17 innings. The Houston Astros are excited to have another ace at the top of the rotation with Framber Valdez. Brown is fitting that role nicely.

Brown’s Outstanding Performance

“Big Diesel,” an affectionate nickname from Shortstop Jeremy Peña, has been fantastic for the Astros in 2025. After a shaky start to 2024, he tinkered and figured it out, and ended last season as one of the better pitchers in the game. Tuesday’s performance solidified that notion.

The Cardinals have been one of the top-hitting teams this year, seemingly out of nowhere. They entered Tuesday leading the Majors in batting average, on-base percentage, and double-digit hit totals but were completely perplexed by Brown. They were unable to get more than two runners past second base all night.

Brown worked his way out of trouble in the first inning after a leadoff walk to Lars Nootbaar, and single, and a subsequent stolen base from Nolan Arenado. With runners on 2nd and 3rd, he got Alec Burleson to pop out to Catcher Yainer Diaz, and he was off and running. He was able to produce double plays in both the 2nd and 3rd, keeping the Cardinals’ offense off the board.

He Kept It Going

The 4th inning was the most impressive for Brown, according to Manager Joe Espada. Brendan Donovan led off the inning with a bloop double and made it to third two batters later on a Burleson single. Burleson stole second after Jordan Walker lined out to short. Both Donovan and Burleson were stranded as Brown struck out Nolan Gorman to end the threat.

Brown struck out the side in the 5th and went one-two-three for the second inning in a row, in the 6th. He was replaced at the start of the 7th, but he did his job. Brown finished off the last eight batters he saw to keep the red-hot Cards off the board. It gave his team a chance to win the game.

With a heavy presence of sinkers and four-seam fastballs, Brown kept the Cardinals hitters guessing every at-bat. His fastball was sitting pretty in the high 90s. He added a sinker last season and threw it 24 times, garnering six misses on 12 swings. Without that new pitch, who knows where he would be today?

Astros Are Hanging On

The American League West is as wide open a division as can be this year. Only three games separate the entire division from top to bottom, it’s relatively surprising it’s so close. The Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners are expected to be in the race, but seeing strong starts from the Los Angeles Angels and Athletics is unexpected.