That Was Different
The weekend series at Fenway featured a slumping offense, effective pitching, a useful Bryan Abreu and a rubber game victory. It was in many ways the opposite of what we've seen so far in 2026.
The Astros won their series against Boston this weekend despite scoring few runs thanks to some quality pitching and an effective high-leverage appearance by Bryan Abreu.
In other words, this weekend in Boston was very much the opposite of what we have seen so far this season from the Astros.
Winning a Series
The Astros have a losing record, standing at 14-21 after the 3-1 extra inning win on Sunday in Boston. That’s not good. And when you lose a lot of games, you lose a lot of series. And while it only seems like the Astros lose every series 2 games to 1, the Astros have only lost 6 series this season. Of course, they have won only 4 (and tied 1).
The Astros have a .400 winning percentage across all games this season and a .400 winning percentage in series. Yeah, it’s not good.
That’s why Sunday felt like such a pleasant surprise. The Astros keep seeming to find ways to lose. And the fact that Sunday was going to be a bullpen game only increased worry among Astros fans. Yet the pitchers rallied to the occasion, holding the Red Sox to only 1 run across 10 innings and giving the offense enough time to finally get a hit with a runner in scoring position, when Cam Smith drove in two with a shot off the Green Monster.
Losing a series only seemed inevitable. In reality, they were able to pull this one out.
A Slumping Offense
The big issue over the weekend was the run production. The Astros scored just 9 runs, 3.0 per game. They lost the Friday game because of their offense, and required a heroic effort on Sunday by the pitching staff because the offense did not break out until extra innings.
Over the season, the offense has not been the problem. The Astros have scored 5.1 runs per game.
Once you get past run scoring, one can see that the bats were fine this weekend. The Astros had a slash line of .292/.366/.434 over the weekend. That compares to a season long slash line of .269/.348/.440. Better at batting average and on base percentage and essentially the same in slugging percentage.
How did they score so few runs this weekend? Sequencing. Astros bats were awesome with the bases clear or a runner on first—with a .330 batting average in those situations. They just happened to hit poorly with runners in scoring position, going 4 for 25, a .160 batting average.
Effective Pitching
If the hitting has not been the problem for the Astros this season, that means the pitching has been. On the season, Astros pitchers have allowed an ERA of 5.75. That’s really bad, right? Yes, it is not only the worst in the majors, but it is also the worst by two-thirds of a run. The Diamondbacks have the second highest team ERA at 5.07.
It was a different story over the weekend. Astros hurlers allowed only 7 runs at Fenway Park for an ERA of 2.33. And they of course won Sunday’s low scoring affair due to their ability to keep the Red Sox off the board.
On Sunday, the bullpen was very effective, allowing only 1 run across 7.2 innings. Over the entire weekend, Astros relievers allowed only 10 hits and 5 walks in 13.2 innings pitched, and limited Boston to 3 runs. That produced a 1.98 ERA.
Is that different? Yes, over the course of the season, the Astros bullpen has an ERA or 6.20. Again, this weekend was quite different.
An Effective Bryan Abreu
The poster boy for the Astros pitching struggles this season is Bryan Abreu. The Astros lead the majors in walk rate, and Abreu is a big contributor with 16 walks in 11 innings on the hill. Unfortunately, that wildness out of the strike zone has been combined with wildness in the strike zone, as Abreu has also allowed 4 homers in those 11 innings.
The Astros expected Abreu to be their closer while Josh Hader is on the IL and then settle into the high leverage role he has done so well since his 2022 breakout. Instead, he has allowed runs in 8 of his 12 appearances on the hill, prompting Joe Espada to find low leverage spots to use Abreu in an attempt to get him right.
The Astros could not avoid using Abreu in a high leverage spot yesterday, as the close games in the series meant that Bryan King was down and Enyel de los Santos was limited to one inning. Bryan Abreu took the hill to start the 9th inning of a tie game. Confidence was, well, where you would expect it to be.
But Abreu was effective in the 9th. He got a grounder and a strikeout from the first two batters, and then was able to walk around an infield single combined with his own error to retire Roman Anthony to get the game to the 10th inning.
The Astros staked him to a lead and thanks to a double play ball to shortstop Carlos Correa, Abreu finished the game off.
It was not a vintage Abreu performance. He struck out only 1 of the 8 batters he faced and allowed a walk and a hit batter, but it was effective enough. I don’t think that performance will push Abreu back up the leverage ladder, but it was essential to winning Sunday’s game and Sunday’s series. Baby steps.
…And unbelievably we are not done in the AL West. It pays to be in a division where only one team has a winning record!
Abreu had good results, but he was not nearly where he needs to be. He had a good slider and he was able to control it enough to get some called strikes. His fastball is still 2 to 3 mph down and it was all over the place. Congratulations on the W, Bryan.