Houston Astros at Chicago White Sox

Despite an injury-plagued 2026 that has limited right-hander Hunter Brown to a 4.05 ERA in 40 innings entering Saturday’s contest against the White Sox at Rate Field, Astros manager Joe Espada hadn’t lost faith in his ace. “He’s shown the velo and the shapes of his pitches are good -- getting ahead and executing his pitches,” Espada said before Saturday’s game. “I think he agrees that he could be better, but it’s going to click for him. This guy’s one of the best pitchers in the game. Hopefully, we see that version today.” Maybe Espada had a peek into the future. Maybe the manager had a hunch. Or maybe Brown was just due. Whatever it was, the Astros and Brown will gladly take his best performance of the year, where he tossed seven scoreless innings with seven strikeouts in the Astros’ 4-1 win over the White Sox on Saturday. It was the first time Brown had pitched into the seventh this season, a surprising fact given he logged 185 1/3 innings in 2025, when he finished third in AL Cy Young Award voting. Brown had a 5.22 ERA in six starts since coming off the IL in June. Saturday he looked more like that dominant starter the Astros hoped he’d be. “That’s Hunter Brown right there,” Espada said after the win. “He looked pissed, too. I thought he came out there and he was pissed. He was tired of the performances. He wanted to show up today and give us an opportunity to win a series, and we did." But it wasn’t just the fact that Brown pitched deep into the game -- it was the way he did it. Brown’s velocity was up across the board; his average four-seam fastball and sinker speeds were up about 1 mph, his changeup was up 1.2 mph and his knuckle curve and slider were up about 2 mph.