With a .993 team fielding percentage, the Astros are on pace to set a major league record.
.993 team fielding percentage would eclipse MLB record
While everyone else was still buzzing Wednesday about Justin Verlander’s 14-strikeout mastery of the Yankees on Tuesday night, Verlander was more impressed by the quality of the defense the Astros continue to display each night.
Through 32 games, the Astros are the only team in single digits in errors committed with nine — two of them by pitchers — on top of any number of highlight-quality plays such as one that helped bail Verlander out of a jam Tuesday night.
In the eighth inning of a scoreless game, shortstop Carlos Correa went to his right to track down a sharply hit grounder by leadoff hitter Tyler Austin. He backhanded the ball on the edge of the outfield grass and went tumbling head over heels after he made the throw to first to get Austin.
Verlander tipped his cap to his shortstop, Correa pointed at his pitcher in return, and the Astros were on their way to another clean inning in the field.
“That’s a perfect example of never taking a play off,” Verlander said. “I don’t think Carlos had gotten but one ball all night, but the play he made was absolutely huge for me and for the team. It dictated the whole inning by getting the leadoff guy.”
While the Astros’ pitchers are piling up strikeouts at an accelerated pace, the other eight players in the field are on a record pace as well.
The Astros’ .993 fielding percentage through Tuesday was tracking ahead of the major league record of .991, set by the 2013 Orioles.
“We have as athletic a defense as you can find,” said manager A.J. Hinch. “I see guys making plays that I don’t see being made on every team.”
In the second inning of Wednesday’s second consecutive 4-0 loss to the Yankees, Josh Reddick ran toward the right-field line to make a basket catch of Aaron Judge’s fly at the wall and threw to first to double up Gleyber Torres.
However, the Astros’ 12-game stretch without an error came to an end in the seventh when third baseman Alex Bregman’s throw to first on a grounder by Miguel Andujar pulled first baseman Yuli Gurriel off the bag.
Until Bregman's miscue, the Astros had gone 21 games without an error by a non-pitcher, the longest such streak in team history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Still, their nine errors are one fewer than 10 by the Angels, the next-best team in that category, and they’ve come with the Astros ranking second in baseball in putouts and seventh in total chances.
Bregman (four), utility man Marwin Gonzalez (two) and outfielder George Springer and pitchers Lance McCullers and Gerrit Cole (one each) are the only Astros players with bobbles in the field, a year after the Astros ranked ninth in the American League in fielding percentage.
It helps, of course, when starter after starter reels off doublefigure strikeout totals, which limits the Astros’ standing in such new-age statistics such as defensive runs saved. But the starters appreciate the support.
“We’ve taken pride in defense even going back to 2015,” McCullers said. “We didn’t have this kind of roster, but that was one of the things that was stressed: to handle the ball well and play clean baseball.
“That has carried over through the years, and we have guys who play one positon that are probably, if not the best, one of the best at that position. And we have guys like Marwin who can play three or four positons or five and can be considered one of the best as well.”
In what McCullers described as a hitter’s game, “The guys here care as much about what they do on defense as on offense, which is why we have been able to accomplish what we have.”
The shift frequently puts Astros fielders in unfamiliar locations, but they continue to react in familiar fashion.
“When we control the baseball, we’re definitely hard to beat,” Bregman said. “All we need are a few runs.”
And even after a night when the Astros failed to get even one run for him, Verlander still appreciated the effort.
“These guys don’t take a play off,” he said. “Everybody pushes one another. It’s a special group.”