Josh

Hader

The 30-year-old southpaw needed just 13 pitches (nine strikes) to get the job done on Thursday, getting Byron Buxton to foul out to the catcher, Trevor Larnach on a swinging third strike and Ty France on a foul pop to first. He has now successfully converted each of his first three save chances on the season while registering a 3.00 ERA, 1.33 WHIP and a 3/2 K/BB ratio over three frames. He remains one of the game’s truly elite closing options.

Hader walked one. With two outs and the tying run on second, he gave up a 108-mph liner to Mark Vientos that found shortstop Jeremy Peña’s glove to end the game. Hader is 2-for-2 in save chances through three games.

Pitching with a 3-0 lead, Hader loaded the bases on two singles and a walk with no outs. He then got a gift out from Hayden Senger, the Mets’ backup catcher making his major league debut, but that still left the bases loaded with Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto coming up and Hader’s slider not working at all. Nevertheless, Hader got a routine sac fly from Lindor and then struck out Soto with his best slider of the day. Hader’s sinker velocity, typically down about three mph this spring, was right back to normal today. The slider was off, but that’s most likely mechanical, not physical.

Hader’s first Statcast game in two weeks and second of the spring revealed his velocity to be down 3.5-4 mph from last year. It was down 2-3 mph in that other outing on March 6. It’s probably not something to worry about, as Hader has previously pitched with lower velocity in spring training and turned it on with the start of the regular season. Still, the lack of velocity in combination with these control woes is a little scary; he’s walked eight in 6 2/3 innings this spring.

Hader doesn’t pitch a lot most springs, but he fares well when he’s on the mound; he came into the day with a career 2.54 ERA in 56 2/3 innings. So, it was a little surprising that he walked two and gave up a jack to Paul DeJong today. It would hardly seem to matter for his standing this year, though, as Hader is locked in as the Astros closer at this point.

The Astros’ big three in the pen was supposed to be their greatest strength, but it never really worked out this way this year, even if no one was exactly bad from the group of Bryan Abreu, Pressly and Hader. Pressly was charged with three of the four runs today and took his first ever postseason blown save after earning 14 saves and four holds in 46 appearances previously. Hader gave up the big blow, which was a three-run double off the bat of Andy Ibáñez, and was charged with one run. He then pitched a scoreless ninth.

Hader, who gave up four runs to the Angels last time out, was able to close out the division clincher tonight. He improved to 33-for-37 in his save chances.

This was ugly. The only out Hader recorded came on a poorly executed bunt attempt as the Angels pushed his ERA up from 3.16 to 3.47 in this singular outing. They didn’t chase a single slider out of the zone and Hader didn’t force a single swing-and-miss. Just an atrocious outing.

Hader didn’t allow a hit and threw 11-of-16 pitches for strikes. He’s now picked up saves in both games of the series, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s not available Saturday. Hader now has 33 saves on the season.

Hader needed only seven pitches to get the save, and six of them were for strikes. He’s now up to 32 saves in his first year with the Astros, and while there have been maybe more clunkers than anticipated, he remains one of the best relief options in the sport.