For several weeks now I've been marveling at the production that the Astros are getting from one reliever. You might think it is Pressley or Harris or Rondon or even Osuna and you'd have a great argument for said thinking. But what I've marveled at is the work put in by Josh James. What I've seen is a guy take to a role in the pen that was once occupied by Mr. Peacock (and last year by Colin McHugh) and made it all his own. As he's grown into this role, he's also re-established his stuff in the same journey. It's not only high octane but now he's developing that slider of his to really bite and provide a solid go-to pitch. Remember, they reformated Pressley to trust his four-seamer more, refine his slider as an out pitch and throw his curveball more to show hitters he's not one dimensional as a reliever. Josh James has come into games that AJ Hinch has needed him to perform in that saved the pen and also the starter that night. Primarily Corbin Martin who seems to be a bit overwhelmed right now as the Astros #3 (that is a discussion for another day because it may still be too early to panic about that role). With James in the pen, Hinch can trust he has a Peacock-like solution out there. Will James eventually become a starter again? I don't know, but I do know that going four innings and then losing his stuff is not a good recipe to be a major league starter. But refining your stuff to go two or three crucial innings for your team and then on occasion be called upon to get maybe one or two guys out in critical situation (something I rarely see Hich do anyway), that is a good thing.
I know that Sensei Strom has said that James problem (as a starter) was not throwing enough strikes. Makes for shorter outings. As a reliever, he can refine his strike throwing prowess while continuing to develop the changeup that he shows on occasion. That pitch added to his slider (that is becoming more of a gotcha pitch) with the 97plus four-seamer that is hard to catchup to... well... he's going to excel as a starter. But last year in the playoffs the BoSox did the same thing the Astros did in the playoff. They used starter-like pitchers for critical long innings, such as Charlie Morton and McCullers in the 2017 and Price and Nathan Eovaldi in 2018. If you ask me, while Springer and Pearce both deserved the World Series MVP awards because they played every game, it was the work Morton did in 2017 and Eovaldi in 2018 that made it all work for those championship runs. Will James evolve into that sort of weapon for the Astros?
I don't know, and certainly this is not a post to jinx the young man. But right now, I like what I'm seeing him do as that unsung hero of the team that puts the icing on the cake of possibly another championship run. it's going to be necessary.
