Peter Lambert Even Surprises Himself Sometimes

Troy Taormina-Imagn Images Leading Astros pitchers in WAR usually takes some doing. The current AL West standings have Houston in line for its eighth division title and 10th postseason appearance in the past 12 years. Over that time, Astros pitchers have won three Cy Young Awards — two for Justin Verlander, one for Dallas Keuchel. Six other starters (Gerrit Cole, Framber Valdez, Lance McCullers Jr., Hunter Brown, Collin McHugh, and Yusei Kikuchi) have gotten downballot votes. This year, the first-place Astros’ pitching WAR leader is 29-year-old Peter Lambert. It’s not a classic Astros rotation by any means — Brown and Cristian Javier have both spent a big chunk of the season on the IL — but Lambert is at the front of it nevertheless. No one expected this, least of all Lambert himself. Lambert was the Rockies’ 2015 second-round pick out of San Dimas High School, which is better known for its football team. He spent parts of four seasons in the majors in Colorado, and his results in that time were poor to say the least: In 243 2/3 innings over 74 appearances, including 35 starts, Lambert posted a 6.28 ERA and a 5.46 FIP. His strikeout and walk numbers (16.4% strikeout rate and 8.6% walk rate) were like something out of the 1970s. So he did what a lot of pitchers in his position have done: He went to Japan, where he went 3-11 with a 4.26 ERA in 21 starts for the Yakult Swallows. When he came back, there was none of the widespread excitement over a man reborn that accompanied the returns of Cody Ponce, Anthony Kay, or Nick Martinez. “I signed a minor league deal, didn’t make the team out of camp, and went to the minor leagues,” Lambert said this week at Citizens Bank Park. “I was always confident in myself, but when that happens you don’t really know where you stand. I just wanted to get back to the major leagues, to play at this level again.” Lambert only spent a couple weeks in the minors; since the Astros called him up, he hasn’t been dominant, but he’s been extremely reliable. In 25 starts, he’s made it through four innings 24 times and five innings 21 times. On August 20, the Angels bashed him around for nine runs in 3 2/3 innings. Apart from that, he’s never given up more than five runs in a start this year, and he’s held opponents to three runs or fewer in 21 of his 25 starts. You Aren't a FanGraphs Member It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed. We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member. 1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other. 2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off. 3. 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And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it. That — a regular place in a starting rotation — is what Lambert sought from his year abroad. “I hadn’t gone a year where I was just starting for, I don’t know, four, five, six years,” he said. “Just being able to be thrown into that role again. Relearn how to throw 100, 110 pitches, navigate lineups a couple times through, it was definitely very good for me.” In those 25 starts, Lambert has a 3.67 ERA in 139 2/3 innings, with a matching 3.67 xERA and a 3.89 FIP. Of the 124 pitchers with at least 100 innings this season, Lambert is 45th in ERA, 28th in xERA, and 49th in FIP. That performance isn’t going to get him any of the Cy Young love the Astros have become accustomed to over the past decade, but it’s miles better than what he was doing in Colorado. So what did he learn in Japan that changed him? Not that much, actually. Lambert’s fastball is actually down half a tick compared to 2024 — which mostly evens out, given that he was throwing out of the bullpen then. He’s dropped his arm angle a few degrees from his pre-Japan delivery, and he’s getting a little less extension, but his high-three-quarters delivery is still similar to what it was in Colorado. The key, Lambert said, is his kitchen-sink arsenal, which he only developed this year. Lambert has always thrown a four-seamer and a changeup, and multiple breaking balls, but this year he’s added a sinker, a cutter, and a sweeper. “Over [in Japan], I experimented with some different pitches, but it never really stuck,” Lambert said. “I was always a true four-pitch guy over there. With some help from the Astros, and it being a main focus of the offseason for me, I was able to get those pitches to stick.” Lambert now throws three fastballs, a changeup, and three breaking balls. He’s one of 12 pitchers to have thrown seven different pitches 100 or more times each this season. No one has thrown eight. “I wanted to pitch super randomly this year. Make it so hitters have to think about more than just a couple of pitches,” Lambert said. “I don’t have any elite pitches. I can’t go out there and rely on just my four-seam fastball or my breaking ball. I need more than that. I need to be able to do a lot of different things.” Like most pitchers with such crowded repertoires, Lambert has different mixes for lefties and righties. But while a pitcher with a five-pitch arsenal might be a two- or three-pitch guy on one side of the plate, Lambert goes at least four or five deep to everyone. For example, 13% of the pitches he’s thrown to right-handed hitters this year have been changeups. It’s not unheard of for certain pitchers to go offspeed right-on-right, but usually pitchers who do that a lot have some unusual quality about them. Kevin Kelly, for instance, has a wacko arm angle. When pillbugs feel threatened they curl into a ball; when Tommy Kahnle feels threatened he throws nothing but changeups. Edward Cabrera’s changeup, if you want to call it that, averages 93 mph. This is just a normal changeup. And yet no less a hitter than Mike Trout is so bumfuzzled he takes it for strike three. He would’ve been less confused if Lambert had thrown him a cantaloupe. The center field camera angle at Angel Stadium isn’t great for tracking pitch movement, but with this clip coming in the first inning, the rubber is still pristine and white. Look at Lambert’s feet, relative to the rubber. The arch of his right foot is on the right edge of the pitcher’s plate. Compare that to this outing from 2023, where Lambert’s in the middle of the rubber. “I made that change right before my last start in Triple-A this year,” Lambert said. “The pitching coach, Sean Buchanan, came up to me and said, ‘I think we should move all the way to the third base side of the rubber and really start leaning into throwing the cutter.’ I did those two things at the same time and it made a big difference.” If you’re just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, moving around on the rubber is an easy low-stakes adjustment that sometimes pays off huge. Shifting right a few inches and throwing more cutters makes sense; Lambert would accentuate the cut fastball’s arm-side action by starting way over on the third-base side. But not by that much — he’s still got a high arm angle, after all. Maybe moving over there unlocked some subtle physical action. Does throwing from the third-base side feel more comfortable, or engage a certain muscle group better? Lambert doesn’t know. “I don’t know if it’s the attack angle, or it adds a little deception,” Lambert said. “Maybe I hide the ball better because as a righty on the third-base side you don’t really see the ball for a touch longer. But to answer your question, I don’t know what it is.” Fair enough. I guess Lambert doesn’t need to know the causal mechanism as long as it’s working. Will it keep working long enough to land Lambert in the Astros’ playoff rotation? Again, Lambert doesn’t know. Whenever I interview players around this time of year, I invariably ask about the playoffs. I don’t know why I bother, because saying the P-word around a big leaguer in an on-the-record conversation invariably provokes a Manchurian Candidate-like answer about taking it one day at a time. And that’s what I got from Lambert. “We’ve got to take care of business now, and we’ve got to get there still,” he said. “So no, I haven’t really looked ahead. It’s been my mindset the whole year, to just take it one day at a time.” Earlier that afternoon, I’d gotten “one day at a time” from a nailed-on starter on a team with Playoff Odds in the high 90s. Like I said, it’s been the rote response since Crash Davis. But the sentiment felt genuine coming from Lambert, who only just got to where he wanted to be a couple months ago, and who still feels the pressure that built up after that start against the Angels. “I know how difficult this game is,” Lambert said. “I know it can turn in an instant… If I went out there and had a couple bad starts, my role could change in a hurry.” The journey from Rockies castoff to Japan to the minor leagues to a contender’s rotation has been rapid. Lambert can’t let himself get too comfortable yet.