Maton on pace to have heaviest season workload

ANAHEIM, Calif. — At a critical moment in the Astros’ second-half opener Friday, manager Dusty Baker emerged from the Angel Stadium dugout in the fifth inning and summoned one of his hardest-worked relievers.

In a 4-4 game, Angels stood on first and second with one out. Phil Maton inherited the jam. He needed three pitches to defuse it. Maton spun three curveballs to Mike Moustakas, who grounded the third to first baseman José Abreu. A double play preserved the tie in an eventual Astros win.

That brief outing illustrated an emphasis of this season for Maton, one the righthander cites as helping him shoulder the workload Houston has given him to date. Maton has pitched in 43 of the Astros’ first 93 games. Only three major league relievers, one of them teammate Bryan Abreu, entered Sunday with more.

Maton, who induced another tailor-made double-play ball that would have sent Saturday’s game to the 11th inning if not for an errant throw that gave the Angels a 13-12 win, awoke Sunday with 452⁄3 innings this season, putting him on pace to surpass his career high of 662⁄3 set in 2021. As Maton pointed out Friday, though, he is navigating those innings using fewer pitches. Maton is averaging 14.65 pitches per inning, two pitches under his career average. The difference is subtle but will add up over the course of a full season.

The cause?

“I think it’s just because I’m pitching better,” Maton said, smiling.

That is one way to assess it. Maton is allowing a career-low 0.898 walks-plus-hits per nine innings, the eighth-lowest mark among pitchers with 30-plus innings, and fewer baserunners often equates to shorter innings and fewer pitches. But a small shift in approach is likely also playing a role, Maton said.

“I think just a little bit more confidence to be in the zone earlier in the count versus years past,” Maton said.

Maton has swing-andmiss stuff. He ranked in the 94th percentile in the majors in whiff rate in 2020 and 95th in 2021. As a reliever often called upon mid-inning, Maton at times must pitch for the strikeout. He has inherited 23 runners this season, most among Houston relievers.

Maton is averaging more than a strikeout per inning. His whiff rate, though, ranks more modestly in the majors’ 78th percentile. Yet he is authoring arguably his best season to date, as an impending free agent, with a 2.36 ERA that would be the lowest of his career. And he is doing so as a leading option for Baker versus lefthanded hitters, given the lack of lefthanded presence in the Houston bullpen.

“In my mind, obviously, trying to get as many strikeouts as possible,” Maton said. “But if guys want to swing at the first pitch and beat it into the ground, I’m cool with rolling the dice with our guys behind me. I’m fine with contact on the ground early in the count. If they want to give me a five-, six-, seven-pitch inning, I’m cool with that.”

Hitters have a 72.2 percent contact rate against Maton this season, his highest rate since 2019. But for Maton, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maton rarely allows sharp contact. No qualified pitcher has a lower rate of hard-hit balls in play allowed this year than Maton, according to Baseball Savant. Just two have allowed a lower average exit velocity on balls in play.

Astros pitching coach Josh Miller said the team didn’t emphasize pitching to contact more with Maton. Miller said the Astros do preach getting to two strikes with their pitchers, which requires being around the zone, and the coaching staff has “tried to pump his stuff up” and encourage Maton to challenge hitters with it.

“He’s got some real uniqueness to his stuff, to his delivery, to his pitch types, how they move,” Miller said. “It’s not a typical look that hitters get, so a lot of times if he’s on his game, they’re not ready to square it up. Getting contact is usually good ’cause it’s on his pitch. And he’s still going to get a fairly good amount of whiffs because his stuff moves so good.”