Brown outduels Cy-candidate Skubal with 5th straight quality start

HOUSTON -- The best pitcher on the mound Friday night wasn’t the one who was presumably leading the American League Cy Young race coming into the day. Hunter Brown got the best of Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal, sending him to his second loss of the season and capping an emotional day for the Astros with a much-needed win.

Brown continued his run of strong pitching by throwing a season-high seven innings, striking out a season-high-tying nine batters with no walks allowed, to outduel Skubal and lead the Astros -- who earlier in the day released veteran first baseman José Abreu -- to a 4-0 win over the Tigers in the series opener at Minute Maid Park.

“Coming into today, I knew we were going up against a really good arm, and he’s been throwing well all season, so you want to come out and give the guys a shot,” Brown said. “No doubt.”

Brown (3-5) has thrown a career-best five consecutive quality starts, including 13 consecutive scoreless innings in his last two starts. He’s 3-1 with a 2.58 ERA, 1.04 WHIP and .195 opponents’ batting average since May 5, lowering his ERA from 9.78 to 5.00 in the 45 1/3 innings he’s pitched since.

“When his stuff is in the zone, people are going to chase because he’s that good,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “You can’t sit back and wait for him to give you something to hit because his stuff is plus stuff. He gets ahead, puts them away. That sinker, it’s a huge pitch for him right now. It’s opening the outside part of the plate for him.”

Brown added a sinker to his repertoire at the beginning of May, giving him something to throw to right-handed batters who were getting too comfortable at the plate. He threw 28 sinkers from among his 96 pitches Friday, getting five whiffs on 20 swings total. The average exit velocity on the pitch was 77.7 mph.

“It just allows him to use his other weapons,” Espada said. “When you have that sinker at 95 [or] 97 running into hands, now you have the four-seam up in the zone, the breaking ball and cutter. Now you have to protect the entire plate, and it’s a very challenging game itself. When you have to cover that much of the plate, it’s almost impossible to hit.”

Brown, a Detroit native, has thrown 12 dominant innings against the Tigers this year, allowing one run while striking out 16 batters with no walks. His resurgence comes at the perfect time for the Astros, who earlier this month lost two pitchers to Tommy John surgery and are testing the depth of their rotation.

“He really overpowered a lot of us and then would mix in a couple of breaking balls,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “I mean, the curveball that he threw late in counts was effective. His ball cuts a little bit, it sinks a little bit. He changed his pitch mix over the last handful of starts, and he was in the zone a lot more. I don't think we drew a walk against him. He was very, very good."

Skubal, who entered Friday leading AL pitchers in ERA (1.92) and WHIP (0.89), carried a one-hit shutout into the sixth inning before the Astros tagged him for a season-high-tying four runs allowed. Jose Altuve doubled and Alex Bregman tripled to start the inning, extending Bregman’s hitting streak to 15 games. Bregman scored on a Yordan Alvarez sac fly, and Mauricio Dubón followed Yainer Diaz's single with a two-run homer to left field to make it 4-0.

“We just stayed on him, and that’s what you do when you have such a quality pitcher on the mound,” Espada said. “With any pitcher, but especially someone like that, you’ve got to stay on him because he’s not going to miss many pitches, and when he does you have to be ready to hit."

The Tigers managed only one runner past second base against Brown, who benefited from a successful appeal when Ryan Kreidler led off the third with an apparent double, but was called out after not touching first base -- a big out for Brown with the top of the order due up.

“When he rounded first, he kind of stopped and waited a second,” Espada said. “It looked like he wanted to come back and step on the bag, so that kind of created a little, ‘Hey, that looks suspicious. Let’s just go take a look [at the replay].’”

Said Brown: “Definitely, I was fired up about that. It’s better than a double, no doubt.”