Rookie shows poise in repeat dominant outing

HOUSTON -- When Astros pitcher Hunter Brown hit Minnesota’s Matt Wallner with a full-count curveball Sunday in Minneapolis, manager Dusty Baker later pulled him aside and offered some advice. Call it a teachable moment, if you will.

“Dusty came to me and said, ‘Hey man, you’ve got to decide when that is the right pitch,’” Brown said.

So when Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe came to the plate Saturday night with the bases loaded and one out in the third inning, Brown showed confidence in his power curve while displaying the guts of a tightrope walker. Lowe swung through the bender for a key strikeout in the Astros’ 8-2 win over the Rangers at Minute Maid Park.

“I think in that spot, it was the right pitch. I had to execute it, and I did,” Brown said. “There’s confidence in knowing when is the time to take the chance and when is not. And he's a really good hitter."

Brown, who entered the season as the Astros’ top prospect, has matured right before our eyes and displayed the poise and savvy of a veteran.

For the second start in a row, he didn’t allow an earned run in seven innings, lowering his ERA to 1.93 through 18 2/3 innings this year. He’s the first Astros pitcher since Scott Kazmir (2015) to not give up an earned run in back-to-back starts of least seven innings, and he’s the only pitcher in the Majors to do it this year.

“He’s pitching with a lot of determination, a lot of fire and making pitches when he had to,” Baker said. “We had that one inning where we didn't play too well on defense. The first thing he says when he comes in is, ‘Hey, we got a lot of game left.’ That’s a very mature statement. He’s pitching great. The key in that game is that 3-2 curveball. It takes a lot of confidence and nerve to throw that to a real good hitter.”

Brown indeed walked a tightrope above disaster in the third inning, when a fielding error by second baseman Mauricio Dubón sparked a Rangers rally. A close call at first that wasn’t overturned on replay and a hit batter only extended the inning, but the strikeout of Lowe was massive. Adolis García followed with an infield hit, but Brown dug deep for a strikeout of Josh Jung to end the inning.

“There was a lot of ballgame left,” Brown said. “Plus, sometimes you just get baseballed. Some stuff happens, and you’ve got to battle through it and try to win the game."

Innings like that can often derail a pitcher, but Brown shook it off and wound up retiring 12 of the final 14 batters he faced. He slapped his glove in excitement when he came off the mound after the top of the seventh and then watched the Astros score five times in the bottom of the inning. That included a bases-loaded walk to Yordan Alvarez, giving him 20 RBIs for the season, and a two-run double by Jeremy Peña.

“I made a good pitch to [Marcus] Semien, and he got a ground ball I was looking for and ended up getting through,” Brown said while dissecting the third. “[With] García, I made a good pitch to him, and he hit a weak ground ball and ends up getting a hit. That kind of stuff you can’t control. You control the pitches that you make, and that’s what you focus on."

Brown threw 99 pitches and averaged 98.2 mph on his fastball. He threw more sliders (39) than fastballs (30) for the second start in a row, and it was also the second start in a row he’s worked with rookie catcher Yainer Diaz, who caught him in Triple-A.

“His breaking balls usually get a lot of ground balls,” Diaz said. “Today he was leaving them a little bit up and was getting a little more firmer contact. What I told him was [to] throw them a little more down, so we can get the contact that we want."