HOUSTON -- George Klassen admitted to having “jelly” legs in the first inning against the Astros on Tuesday night. He allowed two runners to reach but was able to escape the inning unscathed. After that, the rookie right-hander dominated.
Klassen allowed one hit over seven scoreless innings to earn his first career road win as the Angels defeated the Astros, 3-1, at Daikin Park.
Making his fifth career start, Klassen walked Isaac Paredes and allowed a single to Jose Altuve in the first before striking out Daulton Varsho to end the frame.
“The legs were feeling a little jelly in the first inning, and the slider was the pitch that was feeling the best, so I stuck to that strength and just went at him with it,” Klassen said of the Varsho at-bat, which he came back from down 3-1 to strike out the Astros’ center fielder on two straight sliders.
The Angels’ No. 12 prospect settled down from there, retiring 19 of the final 21 batters he faced.
Klassen said he was able to attack after getting through the first. He credited his defense as well as catcher Tyler Heineman for the win.
“I had some outstanding plays on defense help me out a ton,” Klassen said. “Heine calling a great game behind the plate, and the bats were alive tonight. Overall, a really good team win.”
COMPLETE ANGELS PROSPECT COVERAGE
He struck out a career-high seven and walked three. He has won two straight starts after going 0-1 in his first three outings.
“That was some of the best stuff we’ve seen all year,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “Attacking with his fastball and pretty nasty sliders, but I think it was more commanding the zone, getting ahead and really just on the attack. He didn’t make it too complicated, knew what he did best and went after them.”
Klassen became the first Angels rookie to go seven innings and allow one hit or fewer since Reid Detmers, who threw a no-hitter on May 10, 2022 against the Rays.
Since being recalled from Triple-A Salt Lake on Aug. 7, Klassen has a 1.59 ERA and has 15 strikeouts to go with a 1.06 WHIP and a .167 opponent batting average over three starts. The Angels are 3-0 in those games.
“That’s a really tough lineup over there,” Suzuki said. “I think the calmness, it felt like he was in control the whole night. That’s just experience, maturity and just believing and trusting his stuff and his strengths and attacking with it.”
The right-hander relied mostly on a four-seam fastball and slider mix. He threw 43 four-seamers, getting four whiffs on the offering, while he threw 39 sliders, with 12 whiffs on 20 swings, out of his 86 pitches. In all, Klassen got 17 swings and misses.
"I thought this kid's stuff was good,” Houston manager Joe Espada said. “The fastball-slider were close enough where I saw why we were swinging at some of those pitches.”
He also got a lot of soft contact as the Astros’ hitters had an average exit velocity of 87.7 mph.
“Obviously, his slider was working tonight,” Suzuki said. “Heine did a great job of figuring what was working. … I think Heine did a great job of attacking with his strengths.”
Klassen earned his first career win in his last start against the Rangers on Wednesday, yielding two runs over six innings. He has surrendered two runs or fewer in four of his five starts.
The Angels were able to put two-out rallies together against Astros pitching in three straight innings.
Nolan Schanuel had an RBI single with two outs in the third, Josh Lowe hit his 10th home run of the season in the fourth, a solo shot to the Crawford Boxes in left field with two outs and Zach Neto hit an RBI double with two outs in the fifth to increase the lead to 3-0.
“Timely hitting tonight,” Suzuki said. “Really the guys kept going there, it’s not going to be perfect every time, but they kept battling and kept having good at-bats.”