HOUSTON — The best is yet to come for 27-year-old Astros right-hander Hunter Brown, who parlayed the best season of his four-year career into a third-place finish in the American League Cy Young Award voting. That’s an exciting thought for Houston fans considering Brown has three more seasons of team control.
Tarik Skubal of the Tigers won his second consecutive Cy Young on Wednesday, beating out second-place finisher Garrett Crochet of the Red Sox, but Brown’s place among the best starting pitchers in the league is secure. In voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Skubal got 26 first-place votes and four second-place votes (198 points), Crochet garnered four first-place votes and 26 second-place votes (132 points) and Brown had 24 third-place votes, three fourth-place votes and two fifth-place votes, finishing with 80 points.
Brown took over the role as Houston’s ace this year, going 12-9 with a 2.43 ERA and a career-low WHIP of 1.03 in 31 starts. He struck out a career-high 206 batters in 185 1/3 innings and allowed only 133 hits. He had eight starts in which he didn’t allow an earned run.
Among AL starters, Brown ranked first in opponents’ slugging percentage (.318), second in ERA and opponents’ OPS (.589), tied for second in quality starts (21), third in strikeouts, fourth in WHIP, strikeouts per nine innings (10) and pitching wins above replacement (4.6, per FanGraphs) and fifth in opponents’ batting average (.201).
The longest scoreless innings streak in the Major Leagues in 2025 belonged to Brown, who threw 28 scoreless innings from April 3-28 — the fifth-longest single-season streak by an Astros starter in history.
Brown was named the AL Pitcher of the Month for June, after posting a 1.19 ERA and a 0.82 WHIP in 30 1/3 innings, with the Astros winning all five of his starts during the month. He began the season with seven consecutive quality starts, becoming the first pitcher to do that since Shane Bieber had eight in a row with the Guardians to start the 2021 season.
Brown, a fifth-round Draft pick by the Astros in 2019 out of Wayne State, broke into the Major Leagues in ’22 and has been a full-time member of Houston’s pitching staff the past three seasons, making 93 appearances (90 starts) from 2023-25 and going 34-31 with a 3.59 ERA.
The ascension to ace began in the 2024 season for Brown, who overcame a slow start that nearly saw him get sent to the Minor Leagues. He was 0-4 with a 9.78 ERA in his first six starts last year before adding a sinker to his repertoire, which turned his season around. Brown went 11-5 with a 2.51 ERA in 147 innings in his final 25 games (24 starts) in ‘24, helping the Astros wipe out a 10-game deficit to win the American League West.
