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Watch Live: Dallas Keuchel and the Astros face Indians in MLB Game of the Day
The baseball season may be too young and the sample sizes may be too small to do any real celebrating, but there’s one April development the Houston Astros have to be thrilled about.
That’s the return of Dallas Keuchel, who went from AL Cy Young-winner in 2015 to a pitcher with a 9-12 record and ERA approaching 5.00 in 2016. In 2017, a season in which the Astros are looking to make good on their World Series destiny, the best possible development would have been for Keuchel to look like the 2015 version of himself.
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So far, so good. Keuchel is 3-0 with a fantastic 0.96 ERA through three starts for the Astros. He’s allowed only three runs this season, with 22 strikeouts against six walks. It’s one of the reasons the Astros have the best record in the AL West (13-6). We’ll see if both Keuchel and the Astros can keep it going on Tuesday night as they face the Cleveland Indians in the MLB Free Game of the Day on Yahoo Sports. You can stream the game on the Yahoo Sports MLB page, on our Free Game of the Day tab or within this very post once the game starts at 6:15 p.m. ET. Local blackouts apply per MLB rules.
While all of Keuchel’s numbers look great, there’s one that’s particularly encouraging for a guy who has a sinker in his repertoire — his ground-ball rate is 70 percent. Writes Jake Kaplan in the Houston Chronicle:
While such a rate almost certainly isn’t sustainable over a six-month season, it’s just another sign of how well Keuchel has been commanding his pitches. Keuchel has been pounding the bottom of the strike zone, elevating sparingly. He said he didn’t feel much of a need to work up in the zone until his last start, when he allowed just one run in seven innings against the Los Angeles Angels and actually lost a tenth of a point in his now-0.96 ERA.
“I’m just trying to entice some early contact,” he said. “If it’s a groundball that’s great, but outs are outs so if it’s a fly ball that’s fine as well. I’m not looking to have the highest groundball percentage ever in the history, but if that’s the way I get outs than so be it.”
When Keuchel has found success in the past, it’s because he kept the ball on the ground. He had the best ratio in the league in 2014 (63.5 percent), second-best in 2015 (61.7 percent) and then 56.7 percent, which is still a good number, just not as good. What really hurt was this: As opponents hit more balls in the air off Keuchel last season, they more frequently went over the fence.
His home run-per-nine inning rate went from .50 in 2014 to .66 in 2015, then all the way up to 1.07 last season. One factor: He dealt with shoulder pain all year and didn’t immediately tell the Astros. In spring training, however, he said he felt like a brand new guy.
So far, that seems to be the case on the mound too.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
