Houston Astros: Now is the Time to Turn to Ken Giles

The Houston Astros seemingly made only one relevant move all off-season, which was to acquire Ken Giles from the Philadelphia Phillies to be their new hard-throwing closer. Well, it looks like he’s ready to take over that role.

This certainly isn’t the script many imagined for the Houston Astros this season. After a surprising run to the playoffs last season put them well ahead of schedule, the team currently finds themselves in all-too-familiar territory: The cellar of their division.

At 19-28 and 9.5 games behind the first place Seattle Mariners (it’s about time, Seattle), the season isn’t over for Houston, but management will have to be ahead of the curve the rest of the season in order to get a whiff of postseason play. Sure, they have Jose Altuve, George Springer and Carlos Correa to head-up their lineup, but the rotation is missing its ace from last year, as Stacey Gotsulias looked at a couple of days ago, but their bullpen has been close to par with last season’s version, with a cumulative 3.61 ERA compared to 2015’s 3.27.

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So why fix what ain’t broken? Because getting ahead of the curve is imperative. Well that, and Ken Giles has returned to lighting up radar guns.

As Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle reported, Giles has fixed a mechanical flaw through repetitions during side sessions. The flaw? His hand placement, which was allowing hitters to see the ball longer. That one tweak has turned Giles from a reliever that put up an ERA of 9.00 in eleven April games to one that has produced a 2.16 ERA in May, which includes holding opponents without a run since May 5, a span of nine trips to the mound.

In those 7.2 innings, Giles has struck out eleven batters, walked four and given up five hits. While the walk rate is a bit high, Giles hasn’t been burned by allowing runners on–or the long ball that plagued him earlier in the season for that matter.

This all seems to perfectly coincide with the struggles of Luke Gregerson, the Houston Astros closer for the time being. On May 5, Gregerson had his worst outing of the season, allowing three earned and taking the loss against Seattle. Since then, he has thrown 10.2 innings, giving up six earned on 13 hits and three walks, leading to three blown saves in his last seven chances.

While this may just be considered a rough patch, there is more on the line for the Astros this season. With their backs already against the wall, they may need to look for a changing of the guard in the ninth inning, especially if Giles has figured things out, which it appears he has.

While it should hardly be a determining factor, it is worth noting that the free agent contract that Gregerson signed with the Astros last year does have incentives (read: more money) for him if he finishes a certain number of games. The exact amount isn’t necessarily specified, but it’s somewhere in the $1M-$2M range over the course of this year and next. Hardly an amount that would break the bank, but at some point the stockpiled superstars of tomorrow that Houston has will have to be paid, so it could be something that they will consider. I mean, they did have a payroll of $22 million in 2013.

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Even without Gregerson’s incentives and his lackluster play the past couple of weeks, the GM army on social media have been calling for manager A.J. Hinch to lose his job since the start of what has been a lousy 2016 campaign. If Hinch feels some of the heat, he’s going to go with the arms late in games that will allow him to keep his job, and right now Ken Giles should find himself at the top of that list.