It's normally unfair to put the struggles of any MLB club at the feet of a single player. It's a team sport, there are nine men on the field, etc.
But if you're a Houston Astros fan looking to play the one-man blame game with your squad's dismal start, look no further than Dallas Keuchel.
After surrendering seven earned runs on nine hits in six innings in a 9-2 loss to the Texas Rangers on Sunday, Keuchel owns an unsightly 5.92 ERA. And the Astros, not surprisingly, are just 3-7 in his starts.
Overall, Houston is 17-28, dead last in the American League West. One year after blossoming ahead of schedule, leading the division for most of the season and claiming a wild-card slot, the 'Stros have sputtered big time.
And Keuchel, one year after winning an AL Cy Young Award, is sputtering the loudest.
Houston's offense hasn't lit the league on fire. Despite an early power binge from diminutive second baseman Jose Altuve, the Astros rank near the bottom in team batting average and in the middle of the pack in runs scored and OPS.
The rest of the pitching has wobbled, too, as the team's 4.54 ERA attests.
Keuchel, though, isn't merely another arm. He's the ace, the stud, the stopper. The guy Houston was counting on to chew through innings and opposing hitters and anchor its staff.
Instead, the 28-year-old southpaw has vacillated between inconsistent and downright dreadful.
"It's very frustrating because I feel like I had some good stuff today, and it showed early," Keuchel said after Sunday's defeat, per MLB.com's Chris Abshire. "If I show up on a few pitches here and there, it's a totally different ballgame. It just seems like that's the way it's going right now."
Indeed, Keuchel retired the first six hitters he faced. Then, as has so often happened this season, the wheels came off.
What's going on?
Entering play Sunday, Keuchel's average fastball had dipped from 89.5 mph in 2015 to 88.2 mph. But he's never relied on overpowering velocity.
Instead, Keuchel leans on location and getting hitters to pound the ball into the dirt. On that front as well, things are trending in the wrong direction. Keuchel's ground-ball rate has dropped from 61.7 percent in 2015 to 55.5 percent.
As the Houston Chronicle's Jake Kaplan noted, Keuchel has been "nibbling too much on the corners," and instead "needs to fill up the strike zone early in counts to then get batters to consistently chase pitches outside it."
Keuchel has issued 26 walks in 62.1 innings. Last year, he walked 51 in 232 innings.
He's also getting punished with runners in scoring position. For his career, opponents have hit .291 against him in those situations. This season, that number has climbed to .364.
That could be due to command issues, but it could also be the result of some bad luck. We're edging past the way-too-small-sample stage, but it's still only May.
"The frustrating part about it is he's a good pitcher, and I don't think he's enjoying the success he deserves," manager A.J. Hinch said, per Abshire. "Some of that is the league adjusting to it a little bit and making it more difficult and some of it is him overcoming these hurdles."
Keuchel, a 2009 seventh-round pick, struggled in his first two big league seasons, posting plus-5.00 ERAs in 2012 and 2013 before putting together his first 200-inning, sub-3.00 ERA season in 2014. Then came 2015 and the attendant dominance and hardware.
Suddenly, Houston's hirsute ace had vaulted to the forefront of MLB's constellation of aces.
Now, the dreaded "r" word—regression—is hanging on everyone's lips.
Or there's the "p" word—pressure. Sometimes a breakout season can cause a player to press. Keuchel himself trotted out that explanation.
"When you want to be perfect and you want to be so good, sometimes that kind of overcompensates and you backtrack, and that's what I've been doing," he said, per Kaplan. "I'm putting pressure on myself."
At this point, he should be. The Astros have an enviable young core, including slugging outfielder George Springer and reigning AL Rookie of the Year Carlos Correa. But they need their pitching to pick it up if they're going to claw back into the playoff picture.
Adding an arm at the trade deadline is an option, as Houston did last year with left-hander Scott Kazmir. But any resurgence begins with Keuchel.
As he goes, so go the 'Stros.
If that sounds like putting the blame for an entire team's struggles at the feet of a single player, so be it.
All statistics current as of May 22 and courtesy of MLB.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.
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