Sure, the other dueling mate took a no-hitter into the eighth, so it may be a little unreasonable to draw attention to the other guy. However, in the shadow of Texas Rangers‘ Yu Darvish was young Houston Astros starter Brett Oberholtzer, who became the first pitcher since 1980 to throw at least seven innings of shutout baseball in his first two starts just last week.

Oberholtzer continued his run of quality starts, going 6.2 innings and only allowing two runs, both in the first, with six strikeouts. He was unfairly stuck with the loss since it’s impossible to win when your team scores zero.

Looking at the grand scheme, the Astros’ three rookie starters are doing absolutely phenomenal. Jarred Cosart has thrown four of five quality starts, Brad Peacock is two of two, and Oberholtzer is three of three. These guys are doing everything they can to keep the Astros in the game and give them their best shot of winning.

The two most potent tools in the Astros lineup, Jose Altuve and Jason Castro, were out of the lineup with a nagging injuries, so right from the get-go, no one was hitting over .250. It wasn’t a good sign.

In the end, the Astros have to start finding ways to back their young arms. Not enough can be said about how important confidence can be for these guys, and for their quality starts to completely go to waste could be detrimental to their performance. One possible solution would be to call up George Springer, but unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be an option at the moment.

Again, as painful as it is, the only solution is to wait.

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