HOUSTON -- The evolution of Hunter Brown as an ace pitcher continues before our very eyes. On a night when he didn’t have his best four-seam fastball, Brown had to change things up and adjust on the fly while facing the Red Sox for the second time in less than two weeks.
Brown picked up his first win since July 2 by throwing 6 2/3 innings and allowing one run, while Jeremy Peña and Yainer Diaz both homered to send the Astros to a 4-1 win Wednesday night at Daikin Park. Houston has won three consecutive series since being swept in Boston on Aug. 1-3.
On Aug. 1 at Fenway Park, Brown held the Red Sox to one run and four hits in seven innings, but he had to change his script this time against Boston. He relied more on his curveball, throwing it 22 times among his 93 pitches for the night, which is a deviation from his typical heavy four-seam fastball and sinker usage.
“Hunter sets the tone on the mound, and I thought today he really adjusted his game plan,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “When you see a team [12] days ago and now all of a sudden you see them again, a really good offensive team, I thought he had his curveball working today. Adding that to his game plan today was a game-changer.”
Brown threw only nine curveballs in his 97-pitch effort in Boston and knew he’d have to change things up facing the Red Sox again in a short span of time.
“I tried to execute and tried to mix a little bit more,” he said. “I kind of made it tough on Yainer. I didn’t have my greatest command today. Obviously, I walked some guys and stuff like that. We had to try to use what worked and try to navigate us through the game.”
Peña led off the first inning with a homer against Walker Buehler, and Diaz added an RBI single in the inning for a 2-0 lead. Brown endured a wobbly second inning, giving up one run, two hits and two walks, but he held Boston in check the rest of the way. He lowered his ERA to 2.45 and his WHIP to 1.00 in 143 innings pitched.
“I threw a ton of fastballs against them in Boston, so maybe I was a little bit too fine with it early, but I also wasn’t executing,” Brown said. “I had to [change] from there, but I had to go back to it in some big spots, too. That’s the nature of the game, and you’ve got to be prepared for it.”
Abreu takes turn as closer
Espada has stopped short of anointing anyone as closer with All-Star left-hander Josh Hader landing on the injured list Tuesday and seeking a second opinion on his left shoulder strain. He deployed two of his best bullpen arms in relief of Brown, with lefty Bennett Sousa retiring all four batters he faced (three strikeouts) and Bryan Abreu earning his first save of the season with a scoreless ninth.
Abreu gave up two singles to start the ninth, bringing the tying run to the plate. He got Wilyer Abreu to pop out before striking out Ceddanne Rafaela and Rob Refsnyder, touching 100.5 mph along the way.
“It’s sad news that Josh has got this stuff, but I still have to do the same thing, prepare as always and try to just move a little bit later [in the bullpen],” Abreu said.
Sousa relieved Brown with two outs in the seventh and struck out Roman Anthony swinging on a slider. He returned in the eighth and retired Boston’s second, third and fourth hitters -- Alex Bregman, Jarren Duran and Trevor Story, with Duran and Story both going down on sliders.
“I trust my slider a lot,” Sousa said. “I picked my spots to throw the fastball to kind of get him off the slider, but a lot of it is just believing in myself and believing in that pitch and getting good results.”
Sousa threw 14 sliders in his 17-pitch outing and got eight whiffs from 10 swings. To put that in perspective, Brown only had seven whiffs among 34 swings in his start.
“Bennett Sousa’s slider today was lights out,” Espada said. “They looked like fastballs out of his hand and finished down under. And then Abreu gave up just two singles, and then he got really pissed off and we started seeing 100 and 101 [mph]. He got angry.”