HOUSTON — The savior of baseball’s worst pitching staff has a chip stuck to his shoulder. He has tried to block out how he began this season somewhere he did not want to be, but these six brilliant starts still raise the question of why he went to the minor leagues in the first place.
“It felt like a kick in the face in the moment,” Spencer Arrighetti said, “but I just never got discouraged. I feel like that’s just a common theme, whether it be results or things happening that are out of my control. I just take it on the chin and keep working.”
Arrighetti is now back where he belongs — and becoming the best thing about an otherwise brutal start to this season. He is the shaggy-haired stabilizer and source of hope for a starting rotation that has spent seven weeks searching for one.
Summoned from Triple-A Sugar Land on April 15, with the Houston Astros already four games under .500 and fighting an avalanche of injuries, Arrighetti has authored an ace-like run to help them stay afloat. Only five American League starters sport a lower ERA than Arrighetti’s 1.50 mark since he arrived back in the majors.
Houston has 10 wins since the day Arrighetti returned to the 26-man roster in mid-April. He has started five of them, including a 2-0 win Friday night against the Texas Rangers. That Arrighetti fell five outs shy of the franchise’s 18th no-hitter felt like a footnote to something more meaningful.
“He’s starting to get that feel (of), ‘Anytime I get on the mound, I need to deliver for this team,’” manager Joe Espada said. “That is the next step for young pitchers who have the stuff to do it and develop into top-end starters. He’s starting to showcase some of that behavior, and we really needed that today.”
Arrighetti received one run of support across the seven hitless innings he threw. He pitched with no margin for error against an American League West rival with whom the Astros must maintain pace to have any hope for a turnaround.
Mid-May isn’t supposed to supply so much pressure, but such is the situation Houston has created for itself. Arrighetti thrived within it. He generated a 30 percent chase rate from a free-swinging Texas team that could not lay off his curveball. Six of the Rangers’ 12 whiffs came against it.
Only 11 MLB pitchers have a lower arm angle this season than Spencer Arrighetti, according to Baseball Savant. (Troy Taormina / Imagn Images)
“(His) release is so low,” catcher Christian Vázquez said. “They think it’s a ball out of hand, but he gets it so close or in the zone, and they swing and miss. I think that helps.”
Arrighetti did what is expected of an ace, even if calling him one feels premature. This is still a 26-year-old right-hander who made just his 41st major-league start Friday — and lowered his career ERA to 4.16.
Room for growth is apparent, something Arrighetti acknowledged even after flirting with history. Expending 20 pitches in the first inning and 17 more in the third cost him a realistic chance to complete the no-hitter he carried into the eighth.
“I walked too many people, burned a lot of energy, burned a lot of pitches trying to punch guys out that I didn’t need to,” said Arrighetti, who walked four batters and threw a first-pitch strike to 14 of the 27 Rangers he saw. “I’m gonna continue to get better; I firmly believe that.
“I think I made some good adjustments this week in between outings that led to me throwing some better pitches today, and I think that, obviously, you see that in the results. But I don’t think that’s the best. I think there’s better yet to come.”
Analyzed through that lens, Arrighetti’s omission from the Astros’ Opening Day roster seemed understandable. He is among the most sensible members of the Astros’ clubhouse, so he understood the rationale, even if he struggled to accept it. Team officials wanted Arrighetti to create more chase when he got ahead in the count and throw more competitive strikes.
Bear in mind, too, that Hunter Brown finished third in American League Cy Young Award voting last season. Lance McCullers Jr. and Cristian Javier are playing on extensions that are paying them more than $15 million this season. Tatsuya Imai is earning $18 million in the first year of an already inauspicious free-agent contract signed one month after general manager Dana Brown parted with two touted prospects to acquire Mike Burrows.
Barring injury or an absolute implosion in Grapefruit League play, all five pitchers were guaranteed Opening Day roster spots before reporting to spring training. On multiple occasions this winter, though, Espada said he intended to open the season with a six-man rotation.
Reversing course caused the Astros to send Arrighetti to Triple A. His wife, Zaxlee, gave birth to twin boys on March 17, which further impacted Arrighetti’s readiness for the beginning of the regular season. Three minor-league starts helped to get him there.
“I needed to ramp up,” Arrighetti said. “I needed to get my pitch count where it needed to be to start games and go deep into games like I’ve been able to since coming back.”
And since he has, no Astro has been more indispensable.
“He could’ve easily taken that the wrong way, but he chose not to,” Espada said. “He said, ‘I’m going to go down there and work because this team is going to need me at some point.’ And we needed him. He’s been able to be really good in a very important moment in our season.”