Brown keeps Astros on winning track with 8th straight quality start

TORONTO -- In a tight pitchers’ duel, one swing is all it takes.

That swing came from the bat of Jeremy Peña as his fifth-inning solo homer broke up a perfect game bid and rewarded another fantastic outing from Hunter Brown in the Astros’ 3-1 win over the Blue Jays on Monday afternoon at Rogers Centre.

For six innings, Brown and Toronto starter Yariel Rodríguez went toe-to-toe in front of a sold-out Canada Day crowd. Brown prevailed, keeping the Blue Jays’ resurging lineup off the scoreboard for his eighth consecutive quality start.

“I mean, Hunter Brown, he’s been doing it,” Peña said. “He prepares so well for his starts. [This run] couldn't happen to a better guy. He prepares really well and he goes out there and competes.”

The 25-year-old Brown needed all that drive and preparation against the Blue Jays.

The right-hander needed 46 pitches to get through the first two frames, loading the bases with one out in the second after a pair of walks and a single.

If this was April, there would be reason to worry that the inning would get away from Brown. But the past couple of months have been a testament to his maturation process in the big leagues.

“Stay calm and trust your stuff,” manager Joe Espada said. “Trust your defense, trust your game planning. And he's done that.”

That mindset is what helped Brown get out of the jam. A popout and a strikeout later, he was walking off the mound and getting set to cruise through four more innings.

Brown wrapped his day at 99 pitches, yielding two hits and three walks to go with five strikeouts. That effort gave him a 0.29 ERA over his past five starts, marking the sixth time in Astros history that a pitcher has posted a sub-0.30 ERA in such a span (J.R. Richard in 1980 and ‘79, Nolan Ryan in ‘81 and ‘84 and Jim Deshaies in ‘86).

Brown looks like a completely different pitcher from the guy who owned an 8.89 ERA through his first seven starts.

“Those are the moments during a game and during a season when you see a young pitcher turning a corner,” Espada said. “‘I got my stuff, I got good defense. There's no reason to panic. Let me just execute my pitches.’ And that's the difference between this Hunter Brown and the one that we kind of saw struggle earlier in the season.”

The newly developed sinker played a big role in Brown’s latest gem, as he played it off the four-seamer and the cutter to disrupt the timing of a Toronto lineup that doesn’t offer a ton of swings and misses.

“You know coming in what kind of team they are, so you’ve got to make sure that you're filling it up,” Brown said. “The first two innings, I really wasn't executing at the clip that I wanted to, but I was able to kind of bear down and make some pitches early [after that].”

Brown’s offense kept grinding on the other side, too, needing 14 plate appearances until Peña finally got something to hit. He got all of a first-pitch curveball that hung in the middle of the zone, sending it a Statcast-projected 382 feet to left field to give Brown a razor-thin margin.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen [Rodríguez],” Peña said. “He had really good stuff. I felt like he was locating pitches pretty well. As for me, I was looking for a good pitch to hit and I put the barrel on it. … I feel good [right now]. I feel calm at the plate. Yeah, we’ll keep it going.”

The Astros did their best to keep it going, too.

Brown kept the one-run lead in place, handing it off to Houston’s high-leverage arms after the sixth.

Bryan Abreu pitched out of his own jam in the eighth, buying just enough time for Yordan Alvarez to deliver another game-altering swing. His two-run homer in the ninth also proved crucial to Houston’s 12th win in its past 15 games, as Josh Hader allowed a two-out solo blast in the bottom half of the frame.

Those tack-on runs and timely pitching have been the difference for the Astros (43-31) in their current hot stretch as they moved within three games of first place in the AL West.

“We've been playing our brand of baseball,” Peña said. “... We’re going to keep showing up.”