ARLINGTON -- On most nights, Astros starter Hunter Brown would be thrilled with the kind of performance he turned in Thursday. He threw a career-high eight innings, allowing one run while striking out eight batters and flashing the kind of dominating stuff that makes him one of the best young arms in baseball.
The only run he allowed came on a sixth-inning home run to Jake Burger, which turned out to be all the streaking Rangers needed with 36-year-old Jacob deGrom outdueling the 26-year-old Brown. deGrom threw eight scoreless innings to lead Texas to its sixth win in a row, 1-0, over the Astros in the Silver Boot Series opener at Globe Life Field.
“When I’m attacking guys and executing my game plan and all my pitches, I know it’s tough on the opposing lineup and that’s what I’m trying to do every time I take the mound,” Brown said.
Brown, who threw 91 pitches, lowered his ERA to 1.43 from 1.48 in nine starts following his Major League-leading eighth quality start of the season and first career complete game. His 26 quality starts in the last year -- since May 15, 2024 -- are the second-most in baseball in that span behind Zack Wheeler’s 27.
“From the first pitch of the ballgame, he came out throwing strikes and all his pitches were working,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “A strong performance. He’s really, really good.”
The Astros managed just five hits, all off deGrom, and didn’t have a runner reach third base en route to being shut out for the third time this year. It was the longest start for deGrom’s since a shutout against the Nationals while he was with the Mets on April 23, 2021.
The game time was even worthy of a pitchers' duel: 2 hours, 1 minute.
"What a game,” said Rangers manager Bruce Bochy. "It was everything we thought this game would be. We knew runs would be at a premium. I didn't know it would be just one run. What a game Jacob threw, and their guy was so tough, too. Jake [Burger] just got a hold of one there.”
Brown sent down the first 12 batters he faced before Adolís Garcia ripped a double to left field to lead off the fifth that was 112 mph off the bat. Burger, who was 3-for-4 in his career against Brown entering the game, led off the sixth by launching a cutter over the middle of the plate into the right-field seats for a homer.
“It wasn’t necessarily right down the middle, but caught too much plate and he put a good swing on it,” said Brown, who hadn’t given up a home run since his first start of the season on March 28 against the Mets. That’s a span of 50 2/3 innings and 186 plate appearances without allowing a homer.
“They both know it’s a pitchers' duel and sometimes in a pitchers' duel, one pitch sometimes is all it takes,” Espada said. “That’s what happened in today’s game. Our offense, I thought we had some really good at-bats. We had shifted our focus and we started hitting balls to the middle, right-center field. They made some really good plays behind deGrom. It was a heck of a ballgame.”
Brown relied mostly on his four-seam fastball (34 pitches), sinker (24), curveball (14) and changeup (12), with both fastballs topping out at 98.2 mph. The four-seamer accounted for eight of his 11 whiffs. Brown threw 18 first-pitch strikes to the 27 hitters he faced and had only two three-ball counts.
On most nights, he would have been the best pitcher in the ballpark. The veteran deGrom was a bit better in his first career start against the Astros.
“It doesn't matter if it’s Jacob deGrom or anybody else,” Brown said. “When they’re putting up zeroes, your job as a starter is to do the same thing and try and keep the guys in a position to win the game, quite frankly.”