Game 3: Yankees (Stroman) at Astros (Brown)

Marcus Stroman making his first start for the Yanks. He's not a lefty, so he'll have to avoid the Porch when he pitches at the Stadium, but as he throws a heavy sinker more than half the time, that should keep him from getting clobbered at home too often.

He has suffered serious injuries in 3 of his 8 major league seasons, including last year. Before he got hurt, he was one of the best pitchers in the NL, and even made the All-Star team. He wound up 10-9 with a 3.95 ERA. In his first 16 starts, he was 9-4 with 2.28 ERA and a WHIP of just over 1.00. He then apparently tried to pitch through a minor injury, possibly because the Cubs wanted to trade him for prospects, and in his last 7 starts up to July 31st, he got pasted in 6 of them, and was then put on the IL after not being traded. He came back for four appearance starting in mid-September, none of them more than 3 innings.

Stroman's postseason record is so-so, 1-1 with a 4.40 ERA in 5 postseason starts, but his WHIP is a solid 1.17 in those 5 games, and he did average over 6 innings per start, quite rare in contemporary post-season play.

Repertoire: Last year, he threw sinker averaging 91.6 about 55%, though it was probably slightly harder before he got hurt. His 2nd pitch was a slider averaging 85 that he threw about 28% of the time. He also has a cutter at 90 and a change at 87, both thrown 8-9% of the time.

In his career, He's 2-1 against the Astros in 5 starts: 30 innings, 32 hits, 12 runs, 10 earned, 34 K's and 7 BB with just 2 HR allowed. He's never faced them in the postseason.

If healthy, he should be solid for the Yanks in the #3 role (We hope it's the #4 role if Cole makes it back this season.)

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Hunter Brown was a highly regarded prospect for the Astros before joining their rotation last year. Before last season, he was top 50 in all four top 100 lists: Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB Pipeline and Fangraphs, where he was the #33 prospect with a grade of 55.

Last year, he joined the Astros rotation and was very good in his first 10 starts: 5-1 with a 3.12 ERA. From that point until the end of the season, he was very up-and-down. In his last 20 starts, he had 6 games where he went at least 6 innings and gave up 0, 1, or 2 runs, and 7 games in which he gave up 5, 6 or 7 runs. Overall in the last 20 games, he was 6-12 with a 6.31 ERA. For the season, he was 11-13 with an ERA of 5.09, a WHIP of 1.36, allowing slightly over a hit an inning, and a pretty hefty 25 HR allowed in 155 2/3 innings pitched. Against the Yanks, he made two starts, a good one at the Stadium in early August, 6 innings of 2 run ball with 2 solo HR allowed in a 7-3 Astros win, and a poor one in Houston in early September, allowing 5 runs in 3 innings with 5 hits, 4 BB and a HR allowed in a 5-4 loss.

The Astros are counting on him to be a solid piece of the rotation while they wait for multiple starters to return from injury.

Repertoire: Brown throws 5 pitches: a FB 95-6-7 a little less than half the time, a cutter at 92 and a change about 83, both about 23-24% of the time, a splitter at 88 that he throws about once an inning, and a very occasional slider at 85 or so that he uses about twice a start.

Checking in!       

Beeter is heading back to Scranton. Maybe the Yanks want another arm in the pen that can go multiple innings?

I guess it's up to Oswaldo and Berti for 3rd base.  

Seems likely. I was wondering after he came in for the 9th last night who the long man was going to be if either Stroman or Schmidt got knocked out early.

Just traded for a pitcher that can't pitch till July!