Even in the midst of an ugly five-game losing streak, it’s still too early to panic about the Mariners’ place in the standings. It’s okay to be a little worried, however. There’s still more than 90% of the season left to play, but a sufficiently slow start in April can have an impact on the standings in September. Every loss in April means the margin for error down the stretch in the late summer is that much thinner. Yes, the Mariners odds of making the playoffs have dropped from 80.9% on Opening Day to 66.5% today, but they’re still the favorite to win the division and have the second best playoff odds in the American League. This is certainly not the way they wanted to start the season, but maybe it’s a good thing they got this rough patch out of their system early.
At least the Mariners weren’t just swept by the Rockies. The Astros got off to a strong start to the season, winning five of their first seven games, but this current road trip for them has been a nightmare. They were roughed up by the A’s in Sacramento and managed to score just twice over their final two games in Colorado. To make matters worse, their pitching staff has already been decimated by injuries. Hunter Brown was placed on the IL last week with a shoulder injury and Cristian Javier exited his start on Wednesday after throwing just a single inning. It’s not just the starting rotation either. The spring injury to Josh Hader has destabilized the relief corps; Houston currently has the worst bullpen ERA in baseball at 7.09.
The two run showing over their final two games in Coors Field notwithstanding, the Astros offense has been the big reason why they’ve gotten off to a strong start this year. They’ve scored the most runs in baseball and currently sport a 142 wRC+ as a team. When you look at the guys who are fueling this hot start, it’s almost entirely guys who are bouncing back after down seasons in 2025. Yordan Alvarez has blasted four home runs already and has walked in nearly a quarter of his plate appearances; his wRC+ is currently 227. Jose Altuve is right behind Alvarez with a 204 wRC+ and once again proving he’s still able to defy Father Time. Christian Walker is quickly making up for a rough first season in Houston; he’s hit three home runs and is running a 199 wRC+. The most encouraging development has been Cam Smith’s step forward; he got off to a hot start last year too, but so many of his underlying metrics look improved this year.
The Astros emerged as the surprising suitors for Tatsuya Imai this offseason, signing him to a three-year deal well below what many were expecting. Perhaps his contract fell short because it’s really hard to figure out his arsenal. There were plenty of questions about how his fastball would play against MLB batters and pitch models had a terrible time trying to figure out his slider. That breaking ball is unique to say the least. The pitch has the least amount of horizontal movement of any slider thrown in the majors, and depending on how he locates it, it can look like a screwball at times. The heater has looked really good too, benefitting from a low arm slot and a lot of cutting action. Imai will also pepper in a splitter, changeup, and curveball to round out his pitch mix, but the fastball and slider are the two primary weapons.
Lance McCullers Jr. finally got back on the big league mound last season after missing more than two years following elbow surgery back in 2023. It wasn’t an easy return to his previous form. He struggled with his command throughout the season and his velocity was down two ticks across the board from where he was sitting way back in ‘22. His pitch mix looked a lot different too, with his sweeper taking the place of his trademark curveball as his preferred breaking ball. Command is usually the last skill to return after major elbow surgery and he’s now three years removed from that procedure. I’m not sure we’ll ever see peak McCullers again, but he’s got the deep repertoire and experience to be a solid starter as long as his health holds up.
With Hunter Brown on the IL with his shoulder injury, it’s a little unclear how the Astros are going to approach his spot in the rotation. There’s no shortage of candidates, but it’s hard to tell which way the team is going to go. Ryan Weiss and Cody Bolton piggybacked in Brown’s spot on Monday and it looks like they’re lined up to do it again on Sunday after Spencer Arrighetti made his regularly scheduled start in Triple-A on Thursday. You may remember Bolton from his brief time with the Mariners back in 2024 as a reliever. He bounced from Seattle to Cleveland to Houston last year and wound up being stretched out as a starter by the Astros. Weiss was signed from the KBO this offseason but wasn’t able to win a role in the starting rotation this spring. He’s been working out of the bullpen as a long reliever.
The Astros acquired Mike Burrows in a three-team trade involving the Rays and Pirates this offseason. He was surprisingly solid for Pittsburgh in his first full season in the big leagues, even as he was overshadowed by some of the bigger name pitching prospects that were coming up through their system. Those same prospects gave the Pirates a surplus to deal from and Burrows ended up in Houston. He throws relatively hard and has a plus changeup to keep batters from sitting on his heater. That offspeed pitch is his go-to swing and miss pitch too, though he has a pair of above average breaking balls as well. Because the Pirates treat their pitching prospects so carefully, most of Burrows’s work came in four- or five-inning stints. He’ll need to prove he can work through an opposing lineup a third time to really take a step forward in his development.
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THESE STANDINGS.
