Keuchel feeling right back at home
Ace dominates in friendly confines, where he hasn’t lost in 20 months
The orange banner was again draped over the second-deck railing that overlooks sections 105 and 106 of Minute Maid Park, where fans arrived Friday to find new, bright orange T-shirts. “Keuchel’s Korner” was back, and so was the Astros’ Cy Young Award winner.
For the first time since he was minted as the American League’s top pitcher of last season, Dallas Keuchel took the same mound from which he dominated in 2015. A new year, but the same Keuchel, or so it seemed in his 2016 home debut, as the crafty lefthander tossed eight shutout innings in a 1-0 Astros win against the Tigers.
The best part? Keuchel said afterward that he “didn’t really feel good” in the win, which snapped Houston’s three-game losing streak. Must be nice. “I’ll definitely take it,” he said. “That’s a lineup that can do a lot of damage. I felt better the first two times out.” OK, then. Including Game 3 of October’s American League Division Series, Keuchel has made 22 starts since
his last home loss, which occurred 20 months ago against the Rangers. His Cy Young Award-winning campaign of a season ago was built on an astonishing 15-0 record and an extraordinary 1.46 ERA over 18 starts at his home ballpark, marks likely not replicable.
But if they somehow are, Keuchel began his home slate on incredible footing. The bearded Oklahoman held the Tigers’ right-handed heavy lineup to merely five singles, and only once did those singles come in the same inning. Five days removed from tying a career high with six walks in a loss to the Brewers, Keuchel issued only one walk — and none until the eighth inning — on Friday.
“Well, that was a strike, and I wasn’t very happy about that,” Keuchel said of his 3-1 cutter to Jose Iglesias, Detroit’s nine-hole hitter. “So, I don’t consider myself walking anybody tonight.”
Keuchel had his way despite pitching with only a run of support. The Astros ran up the pitch count of Tigers righthander Mike Pelfrey, working five walks in their first 14 at-bats and six over all, but they failed to take advantage of several opportunities with runners in scoring position. Three inning-ending double plays helped Pelfrey last six innings.
Houston had nine baserunners with one or no outs through three innings but mystifyingly scored just the one run. The bases were left loaded in each of the first two innings, four different Astros batter squandering chances to break the game open. Colby Rasmus’ first-inning single to score George Springer marked the team’s lone run.
“The game didn’t play out as it could have,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. We certainly had our opportunities early. … He really danced around the strike zone and we couldn’t come up with the hit that would separate (us) and give us a little bit of breathing room.”
But as the game wore on, it became more and more apparent one run was all the support Keuchel and closer Luke Gregerson needed. The Astros ace had exhausted only 52 pitches when he walked off the mound midway through the fifth. The pinpoint command he lacked early in each of his first two outings was on display, helping him induce 13 groundouts to just three fly outs. During one stretch from the third inning to the seventh, he retired 11 consecutive batters.
“It’s the late movement that makes him tough,” said Tigers manager Brad Ausmus, the former longtime Astros catcher. “We actually hit some balls pretty well early off him and then he settled in. You didn’t see a lot of hard contact after that, but he’s got the Cy Young Award for a reason.”
Keuchel recorded four strikeouts, one against four-time AL batting champion Miguel Cabrera, who whiffed at a full-count slider to cap a 10-pitch battle of an at-bat in the sixth. He unleashed a similar pitch to retire Ian Kinsler with one out in the eighth and a runner on first. Justin Upton skied a cutter to Rasmus in left field to end the frame and Keuchel’s best start of the young season.
At least, on paper his best start of the young season.
“I’m not sure he can get any more confident than every time he has the ball in his hand,” Hinch said. “But there is something about pitching here that he responds to and certainly the opponent has something to deal with.”