Despite the inconsistency with which the Houston Astros has played with all season long, they remain in the thick of the division race, standing at just 1.5 games behind the AL West-leading Seattle Mariners. On Thursday night, the Astros scored a solid 2-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers, with Tatsuya Imai turning in the best pitching performance of his brief MLB career thus far.
Imai might be hitting his stride; he shut out the Tigers through six innings of work, allowing just two hits and one walk while striking out 10 batters. For someone who entered the night with an ERA of 6.15 across 10 starts (47.0 innings of work), this might just be the turning point he needs to repay the team’s belief in him when they signed him to a three-year, $54 million contract that could rise up to $63 million total.,
Perhaps Imai just needed some time to acclimate to the big-league level as well as to life stateside. He had spent the first eight years of his professional career in Japan, after all. And now, Astros manager Joe Espada believes that the 28-year-old’s confidence is skyrocketing with each passing game.
“I think we are in that stage where he knows he belongs,” Espada said, per Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle.
For what it’s worth, Imai’s peripherals suggested that he hasn’t pitched as poorly as his 6.15 ERA heading into Thursday night would suggest. He has been striking out over 10 batters per nine innings, but the opposing batted-ball data simply hasn’t been kind to him, inflating his ERA relative to his FIP (which was at 4.71).
Imai’s command may never become elite, but if he at least learns to keep his walks down, he should become a valuable weapon for the Astros in their starting rotation. It also helps that he’s been putting his injury problems further in the rearview mirror, which should only aid in his performances moving forward.
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