Keuchel battered, gives up 8 runs, 10 hits
After ace’s struggles, rotation becomes club’s biggest worry
CHICAGO — Dallas Keuchel went on the disabled list as the league’s ERA leader and returned eight weeks later looking like the same pitcher who labored through an injury-shortened 2016 season.
For a team with suspect pitching compared with other World Series contenders, the Astros must overcome renewed concerns about their ace’s performance.
Keuchel’s third start since his return from injury was not only by far his worst yet but one of the worst of his six-year career. In an 8-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night, the former Cy Young winner was shelled for all eight runs. He didn’t pitch beyond the fourth inning.
The dreadful outing propelled Keuchel to the top of the list of question marks surrounding the AL leaders, missing their No. 2 starter in Lance McCullers Jr.
and whose bullpen has regressed every month.
Whether Keuchel and McCullers can regain their All-Star forms before the AL Division Series will be the most important storyines of the final 50 games.
Keuchel’s start Tuesday was much more troubling than his previous two.
Even against the worst team in the AL, he required 92 pitches to record just 12 outs.
His pinpoint command was absent for a third consecutive outing, a span that coincides with his return from a neck injury.
Asked after Tuesday’s start if he feels healthy, Keuchel said, “Yeah. I feel good.”
“I just didn’t make very good pitches. That was the name of the game,” said Keuchel, whose recent inefficiency resembles his 2016 season, when he had a 4.55 ERA in 26 starts. “It seems like I haven’t really gotten ahead of anybody in the three games since I’ve been back, and that’s proven to be bad. I put the team in a bad position.”
Not the same pitcher
Keuchel, who recently voiced his disappointment with the front office for not bolstering the pitching staff before the July 31 nonwaiver trade deadline, has yet to pitch deeper than five innings since his return from the DL.
On Tuesday, Astros manager A.J. Hinch had a more-than-solid case to pull him after the third.
“I was really, really good before I went down and I’ve been really, really bad the three starts post DL,” Keuchel said. “We’ll get it right and get back to it. But it’s very frustrating.”
The damage inflicted against Keuchel came via 10 hits and three walks. The White Sox sent eight batters to the plate in a 28-pitch first and eight more to the plate in a 32-pitch third.
Kevan Smith provided the final blow when he cranked a first-pitch cutter into Guaranteed Rate Field’s left-field seats for a two-run homer in the fourth.
The eight earned runs charged to Keuchel matched his second-worst total in 140 career regularseason starts. His ERA, which sat an AL-best 1.67 ERA in 11 starts before his DL stint, inflated to 2.87.
Tuesday’s first inning portended the struggles that ensued. Three of the first four and four of the first six White Sox batters tagged Keuchel for a hit.
Before Keuchel recorded three outs, three runs were on the board.
The Astros (71-41) erased the 3-0 deficit in the second against former Texas Rangers lefthander Derek Holland, who has a 5.25 ERA in his first season with the White Sox (4268). With the bases loaded and two outs in the inning, the red-hot Alex Bregman ripped a three-run triple to extend his streak of consecutive games with an extra-base hit to nine.
Bregman’s streak matches Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman for the longest such run in the majors this season.
The score didn’t stay tied for long, however. Though Keuchel retired the side in order in a 10-pitch second, he began the third by allowing a single, two doubles and a walk.
After recording two outs, he gave up an RBI single to nine-hole hitter Adam Engel.
Solo homers late
Despite a pitch count of 70 and a 6-3 score, Keuchel was sent back out for the fourth inning. With two outs and Jose Abreu on first, Smith ambushed the first pitch he saw for a nodoubt homer. Left fielder Marwin Gonzalez barely moved as the ball headed for the left-field seats.
Keuchel finished the inning, but James Hoyt took over for the fifth.
The Astros clawed back into the game behind solo homers in the seventh by Jose Altuve and Yuli Gurriel but couldn’t overcome the deficit. Engel, the Sox center fielder, robbed Brian McCann of a solo homer in the fourth with a leaping catch at the wall.
Hoyt and Joe Musgrove combined for four scoreless innings in relief of Keuchel, author of the most alarming pitching performance of the Astros’ season to date.
“Very frustrating on my part,” Keuchel said. “I felt good coming in and I had a chance to really take advantage of a team that’s rebuilding, and I didn’t do it.”