Houston Sports - Dallas Keuchel

Dallas Keuchel

Born: January 1, 1988

Sport: Baseball (103-92 pitching record, 2-time All-Star, 5-time Gold Glove, Cy Young, World Series champ)

As we approach the "dog days" of summer at the end of June, baseball usually takes center stage as the only game in town for any year that doesn't have the Olympics going on.  In 2026, however, we have the World Cup occupying our sports attention.  But we are still going to give the local nine their due and keep our focus on the diamond, at least for this week.  Back in 2015, the Houston Astros became relevant for the first time in quite a while as they made the postseason for the first time in 10 years, during which time they switched leagues from the NL to the AL and also endured a streak of three consecutive seasons of 100+ losses.  Their first taste of playoff baseball since their 2005 World Series loss was a memorable one, as they dispatched the New York Yankees in a one-game Wild Card round before falling to the eventual World Series champs in the NLDS.  The leader of the Astros pitching staff that year who would soon become instrumental in the team's first championship was Dallas Keuchel.  Let's take a look at one of the most successful left-handed pitchers in Astros history.

The downtown home of the Houston Astros in 2012, when Keuchel made his debut

Born as the younger brother to big sister Krista on New Year's Day in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Dallas Keuchel (pronounced KY-kull) was always obsessed with sports.  His dad, Dennis, was active in the plant business as a horticulturalist while mom, Teresa, stayed home and regularly played ball with her son in the yard.  Young Dallas was involved in whatever team sport he could play, whether it was baseball, football, or basketball, and remained active in all three all the way through high school.  He was also a typical '90s kid, playing video games and doing yard work to help out his grandparents, including his grandpa Joseph who allowed him to use the riding lawn mower but taught the young man excellence by insisting on every bit of the lawn being cut to perfection.  Although he was the starting quarterback at Tulsa's Bishop Kelley High School, it was on the diamond where Keuchel's greatest successes showed themselves as he won state championships in both his sophomore and senior seasons.  In 2006, his final year in high school saw him post a 10-0 record with a 1.57 ERA.  He attended college across the state line in Arkansas and helped take the Razorbacks to the College World Series in 2009, winning a pair of games to lead them to a 3rd place national finish.  Keuchel never made it to his senior season, as the Houston Astros selected him in the 7th round of the 2009 MLB Draft and he signed with them to begin his professional career.

Throughout his development, Dallas Keuchel routinely had to work through difficult transitions as he reached new skill levels.  Not possessing overpowering speed or natural "swing-and-miss" pitches, many scouts believed he would be a late-rotation starter or even have to carve out a career as a reliever.  As a three-year college starter, Keuchel nevertheless started his pro career at Low-A ball in 2009 before making it to High-A play the following season.  Before 2010 was over he climbed up to the AA level with a promotion to the Corpus Christi Hooks, where he stayed for most of the year until getting the call up to Oklahoma City to pitch for the AAA team.  Keuchel didn't regularly earn recognition among the top prospects with the franchise, but his continued development on pitch control and generating weak contact from hitters meant the decision-makers with the Astros never lost track of him.  Getting the call to join the big league club on June 17, 2012, Keuchel made his debut at the major league level against the Texas Rangers, a division rival to the Astros and the closest team to his hometown.  Before the game, the young man took advice from his dad as he paused behind the pitcher's mound prior to the beginning of the game, took a deep breath and looked around the stadium to soak in the experience.  It was a moment of reflection and became a standard practice for Keuchel throughout his career.  Despite pitching into the sixth inning with a lead, the bullpen gave it up and a reliever was tagged with the loss.  Keuchel solved that problem in his second start when he threw a complete game, beating the Cleveland Indians by the final of 8-1 in front of his home crowd.  Keuchel's rookie campaign was the last year for Houston in the National League and came during a rebuilding phase for the franchise.  Both that season and the next were developmental in every sense of the word for Keuchel, as he posted 5+ ERA both years and was just below 0 in WAR (wins above replacement - a metric comparing players to average major leaguers at their position).  Because the entire team was effectively being torn down and rebuilt, however, Keuchel was allowed to continue struggling and improving against major league talent, and in 2014 he began to make his presence felt in a positive way.

Becoming a master at keeping batters off-balance, Dallas Keuchel pitched his way to his first winning season in 2014 by striking out a respectable 146 batters in exactly 200 innings, and shaved his ERA below 3.00 while leading the league in complete games.  He helped himself with his glove as well, earning his first career Gold Glove award by committing just one error while leading all pitchers across baseball with 47 fielding assists.  With all of the weak ground balls he generated, his skill with the glove made it almost like the Astros had an additional infielder.  Both Keuchel and the Astros struck gold in 2015, with the lefty leading the AL in Wins, Innings Pitched, Shutouts, WAR, and WHIP (baserunners per IP) en route to his first All-Star selection, a second Gold Glove, and the Cy Young Award.  He even got enough votes to place 5th in the MVP balloting that year as Houston roared to the playoffs behind Keuchel, AL hits leader Jose Altuve, and ROY Carlos Correa.  Keuchel dominated the season, but in a winner-take-all Wild Card game against the Yankees it was questionable whether the lefty had what was needed to handle the New York lineup in the Bronx.  He answered every question with 6 innings of shutout ball, and the Astros introduced themselves to the American League playoffs by eliminating a team that had the longest history of success.  To date, the Astros have never been knocked out of the postseason by the Yankees.  It looked like the Astros had a shot at winning their series in the divisional round, but the best bullpen pitchers on the team scuffled together at the wrong time and the Kansas City Royals came from behind to knock out Houston on their way to the 2015 World Series title.  The 2016 season was a down year for Keuchel, who battled inflammation and discomfort in his pitching shoulder but still managed to earn a Gold Glove for his defensive prowess.  In 2017, the southpaw once again made it to the All-Star game and Houston parlayed a revamped roster into a championship, knocking out the Yankees and Dodgers on the way to the first World Series in franchise history.  Keuchel went 2-2 during the playoffs that year and started a wild game 5 in the World Series during which he got a no-decision in a 10-inning, 13-12 win for Houston.

The 2018 season was Dallas Keuchel's last year under contract in Houston, and despite proving his workhorse reputation by leading the league in starts the team let him enter free agency after they were eliminated from the ALCS by the Boston Red Sox.  Signing with the Atlanta Braves for the 2019 season, Keuchel earned an additional Gold Glove and became something of a journeyman for the duration of his career.  He spent two years playing for the Chicago White Sox, including a sub-2.00 ERA season during the COVID-shortened 2020 season and his final Gold Glove in 2021, but during his third campaign was released by the club after giving up 33 runs in just 8 starts.  The Arizona Diamondbacks picked up the veteran starter in June but Keuchel's tenure there only lasted 4 starts.  Finally, the Texas Rangers signed him at the end of July to become the third franchise where Keuchel would pitch in 2022, but it also became the third team to cut him just two starts later.  Although his career was scuffling, Keuchel's personal life was a ray of sunshine as he married MLB Network host Kelly Nash early in 2022.  After pitching 10 games for the Minnesota Twins in 2023 and just 4 for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2024, Keuchel left the US to pitch for Japan's Nippon league for the duration of the season.  He attempted a comeback with the Kansas City Royals in 2025 but was unable to reach the major leagues.  Despite making it clear that he is available this year, no team has taken him up on the offer and it is unlikely that he'll be an impact player again.  But for a guy who has always taken the field purely for the love of the game, Keuchel is holding out hope for one last shot.

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