Astros find their footing with a pair of arms that has paid its dues

KISSIMMEE, Fla. – Collin McHugh leaned against the back of a chair, his arms folded. His T-shirt was a size or two big, so the sleeves came off his shoulders in billows and the front bunched over his chest, like he was hiding in there somewhere. He’s lean. The shirt exaggerated the fact, as did a crisp intelligence that nudged up against bookish.

He was talking about the game and his place in it, how it came to be when it looked like it never would. He’ll be 28 this summer, which meant he’d been running a little short on time, and that’s not even counting the time he’d considered quitting. Maybe he wouldn’t even recognize that guy anymore.

“There’s something to be said,” McHugh said, “about due process.”

The best part of the game is that it is unpredictable. And the best part of that is a man such as McHugh or, for that matter, teammate Dallas Keuchel, also 27, both of whom were beginning to test the notions of opportunity and patience (and the life expectancy of due process) when they became precisely the pitchers they had an idea they could be.

They changed some things. They got better at others. They kept showing up. The Houston Astros provided innings, because they are rebuilding and the prospect cavalry hasn’t yet arrived. Brent Strom, the pitching coach, gets credit from both. Then they belonged, and didn’t just belong but posted ERAs in the twos, and so challenged the idea that a ballplayer could be one thing for a thousand days and therefore would be that same ballplayer on the thousand-and-first.

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“Funny,” Keuchel said, “how things take shape.”

One summer, Keuchel, who had a 5.20 ERA over 239 previous career innings, won 12 games and had a 2.93 ERA over 200 innings. In the same summer, McHugh, who’d never won a game and had a near-9.00 ERA in 47 1/3 career innings, won 11 and had a 2.73 ERA over 154 2/3 innings. They weren’t much alike. They throw from different sides. Keuchel, the lefty, hammered at the bottom of the zone with sinkers, sliders and a wonderful changeup, while McHugh about doubled his strikeouts and halved his WHIP by sharpening his curveball and getting after the top of the zone. But they shared a story of perseverance. They believed, or at least didn’t not believe. And from a sea of scouting reports, analytical breakdowns, disparate opinions, and just plain results, up bobbed a pair of breakout seasons that hardly anyone saw coming.

In the end, Astros manager A.J. Hinch said, “You find out a lot about yourself.”

Hopefully, it’s good.

You just don’t know. You measure, you watch, and you still don’t know. You wait for the success so that the confidence grows and the performance follows. Or, perhaps, you wait for the confidence so that the success grows and the performance follows. Maybe, in the end, none of it. Then a young man such as Collin McHugh, pride of Berry College in Rome, Ga., where, he admitted, “There are many more deer than students,” finds a grip and a strategy and a way to do this. The Astros got him a little more than a year ago, after the Colorado Rockies designated him for assignment. In a few weeks, he’ll make his first opening day roster.

“There comes the realization,” McHugh said, “that there’s not much difference between a guy who’s middling or in high-A, a guy who in 2011 is ready to be done, and the guy who two years later is in the big leagues. There’s not a lot separating that.

“I do believe it’s about having faith in something bigger than yourself, whatever you want to call it, whatever you believe in.”

Maybe it is opportunity. It’s patience. It’s due process. Even then, the stud first-rounder fails, and the 18th-rounder – McHugh – persists. Three months after the Astros picked up McHugh, they released a 27-year-old outfielder who’d probably run his course. J.D. Martinez batted .315 and hit 23 home runs for the Detroit Tigers instead.

The art is in determining which is which. Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, who inherited Keuchel from the Ed Wade era and chased trades for McHugh when McHugh was with the New York Mets and Rockies, chuckled at the imprecision of it all. The Astros love their numbers, for sure. They also watch a season of Keuchel and McHugh and, asked why now, point to their hearts and heads, meaning to say: Those guys got after it. Those guys wanted it. Those guys wouldn’t quit.

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“If we knew how to do that we’d have an advantage over other clubs,” Luhnow said. “But it works in both directions.”

The Astros always did see something good in Keuchel, even when the results said otherwise. A guy only gets so many of those pardons, however, so many innings, so many birthdays.

“You’d hear guys say, ‘When it clicks, it clicks,’” Keuchel said.

And when it doesn’t?

Well, you throw another pitch and let due process decide.

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