Maintaining Velocity Will Be Key for Houston Astros Star Pitcher To Keep Thriving

A Houston Astros starting pitcher has gotten off to an incredible start, and maintaining his velocity will be key to sustaining it.

Apr 15, 2025; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Houston Astros starting pitcher Hunter Brown (58) pitches against the St. Louis Cardinals during the first inning at Busch Stadium. | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

There may not be a starting pitcher in baseball who has gotten off to a better start than Houston Astros emerging star Hunter Brown.

Since last May, the only two pitchers who had a better ERA than him were Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves. They won the National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Awards, respectively, in 2024.

Brown didn’t bring home any hardware last year, but his start to this season certainly puts him in a position to receive a number of accolades.

Through his first four starts of the campaign, he has a 2-1 record with a 1.50 ERA across 24 innings. He has gone six innings in each start, striking out 22 batters while walking only five and allowing one home run.

Cutting down his walk rate has been huge for his production. It was the only true Achilles heel he had been showing, and ironing that out has led to some incredible numbers out of the gate.

Opponents are struggling to square the ball up against him with an average exit velocity of 84.4 mph. He has allowed a hard-hit rate of only 28.3%, which would be by far a career best number and is well below the league average of 39.1%.

A big reason for the early success has been the uptick in velocity that he has showcased.

This offseason, a focus for Brown was on improving his flexibility and mobility. He believed it would translate to better results on the mound and to this point, he has been right.

His fastball velocity has increased to 97.3 mph, up from 96 last year. He is throwing his four-seam fastball harder than ever, already itching 99 mph five times; he accomplished that feat only seven times over his first three Major League campaigns.

The bigger question will be whether or not Brown can maintain this velocity over the entirety of the marathon regular season.

His hot start has been incredibly impressive, but sometimes an early spike will dissipate over time.

However, Brown put the work in during the offseason to handle this kind of workload. It is a legitimate question if a younger player can maintain the same level of production in September and October as they did in April.

But, that is what separates solid players from the great ones.

Brown certainly looks to be a great one in the early going, ready to assume the role as the team’s ace and combining with Framber Valdez to create one of the better one-two punches in the American League.