Contrary to the received wisdom, good teams do not have a special formula for winning close games at a higher rate. The reality is that the good teams are really good at winning games by comfortable margins. Winning one-run games is inherently “lucky”, but winning by 5+ runs shows skill. By blowing out the Guardians, a good team, on Thursday night, the Astros gave their fans hope that maybe the team is better than their record.
Spencer Arrighetti showed a lot of improvement, striking out six, walking three, and allowing no home runs over 5.2 innings.
Most encouragingly, his Called strike + whiff percentage (CS+W%) was a healthy 30%.