Houston Astros Emerging Ace Looks To Be All-Star Game Shoo-In With Dominant Start

To the surprise of probably no one, the Houston Astros have steadied things out after a shaky start to the 2025 MLB regular season.

That has become their MO over the last few years, starting painfully slow out of the gate to eventually find their form near the end of April and kick things into another gear.

After not winning back-to-back games until April 21 and 22 of the season, they have now been victorious in five out of their last seven contests and own a record of 15-13, only one game behind the Seattle Mariners in the American League West.

That divisional race is going to come down to which team’s offense can produce the most.

The Mariners have notoriously been inconsistent at the plate but have gotten off to a strong start, averaging 4.93 runs per game out of the gate. The Astros are in the bottom half of the league with 3.82 runs.

Where both can count on success is with dominant pitching performances.

For Houston, leading the way in that regard has been Hunter Brown, the next big thing amongst starting pitchers.

He has put himself on the map since May of 2024.

From that point on, only Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who won the National League Rookie of the Year Award, and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves, who won the NL Cy Young Award, had a lower ERA than the Astros’ star.

That positive momentum has been carried into the 2025 campaign, where Brown is cementing his status as one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Through six starts, he has produced an MLB-high 1.6 WAR. He has a 1.22 ERA across 37 innings with 40 strikeouts. His 1.82 FIP is the best in the AL entering play on April 29.

Excelling across the board, David Schoenfield of ESPN has highlighted him as one of the All-Star performers in the first month of the season.

“Brown has been hard to hit, is not allowing home runs, is not giving up many walks and was great over the final four months of 2024. Add it up, and Brown is the real deal,” he wrote.

His Baseball Savant page is a thing of beauty, with virtually every metric being in the red. His pitching run value is in the 99th percentile at +10, with his fastball generating +7 alone as one of the best offerings in the game.

Brown is doing a great job of limiting hard contact and his ratios are all heading in the right direction. If his strikeout and walk rates hold, both would be single-season bests for him to this point.

His ascension could not have come at a better time for the franchise, with Framber Valdez set to hit free agency after the season and the rest of their starting rotation situation being shaky because of injuries and underwhelming performances.

A true ace in the making, Brown has put himself in a position to start for the AL in the 2025 MLB All-Star Game.

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