Reprieve for Giles
Closer preserves Verlander jewel with 1-2-3 ninth
There is an orange wall right at the entrance to the Astros’ clubhouse where starting pitchers gather to speak to reporters following their outings. Should another player produce an extraordinary game, he too will go there to face the cameras and avoid cluttering the cramped locker space.
“I get to come up here, talk here?” Ken Giles asked a public relations staffer. “It’s like a podium.”
Giles lives a thankless life containing a nonexistent margin for error. His
role is questioned, if not doubted, each time it is crossed. Manager A.J. Hinch’s matchup-centric bullpen decisions, regardless of score or situation, exacerbate the situation.
“We forget to mention when Ken Giles puts together a good little stretch,” Hinch said Wednesday, after Giles closed the Astros’ 5-2 win over the Angels. “It’s easy to pile on relievers whenever they give up a big run, (and) we only talk about them when they’re noticeable and they give up runs.”
Once already this season — in an April 7 game his team won — Giles was booed on his home field, a season after converting 34 of 38 save opportunities. The crime was not giving up a run. He’d just ceded a leadoff double. Fans fret on social media when told he is loosening in the bullpen.
Wednesday, he began to throw in the eighth inning. His team held a three-run lead. Only once this year, against the Twins on April 9, had Giles entered in a save situation. Even then, he was required to get just one out. A game-tying homer went foul by mere feet before he did so. Six hits in his first 32⁄3 innings pitched did not inspire confidence in his earlyseason performance.
Back tightness rendered him almost immobile in Seattle last week. Now, for a second straight day, Hinch gave him the ninth. Mike Trout, Justin Upton and Albert Pujols loomed. Aggressive mindset
“Great hitters — you need to be aggressive toward them, and they’re going to be aggressive toward you,” Giles said, “I used their aggressiveness to my advantage.”
Giles tossed seven pitches. Five were fastballs. Trout hit his fastest — a 97.9 mph four-seam fastball — to center field for the first out.
Both of Giles’ sliders were strikes. Upton watched the first loop in to open his at-bat. He swung over another to end it.
The three-pitch strikeout brought Pujols – this franchise’s most harrowing nuisance of the last decade — up. He struck a solo home run in the seventh inning off Justin Verlander, spoiling shutout hopes and placing him six hits away from 3,000.
Giles offered a firstpitch fastball. Pujols skied it to right field. George Springer cradled it for a third out.
“That was spectacular,” Verlander said. “(Giles) came in and shut the door. He looked fantastic. Good life on his fastball. Slider was disgusting — the one he threw (Upton).
“If that guy is on, it’s trouble.”
Verlander preceded this with brilliance. He carried a perfect game into the fifth inning and said he began thinking of it in the third. Zack Cozart blooped a broken-bat single among three Astros with two outs in the fifth to spoil such hopes.
“This is the best my body has felt to this point in the season,” Verlander said. “Hopefully, I’m kind of to the point where my body is just kind of getting used to the routine of every five days and recovering well and just ready to get rolling. Keep it going start to start.”
His fastball command was impeccable. He threw 28 in his first 32 pitches, accruing four strikeouts in his first navigation of the Angels order. It is a lineup that puts the ball in play frequently. A bona fide Hall of Famer hits in the middle. An almost certain one hits just above him.
Against it, Verlander remained the aggressor. He didn’t face a three-ball count until there were two outs in his seventh and final inning.
“Getting into the game, he was very locked in with his mechanics,” Hinch said. “He had a really good game plan, he’s pitched well against these guys before, and he’s executing pitches at an elite level.”
For three innings, Angels starter Nick Tropeano equaled Verlander. His splitter bit, and his command was precise. Six of the first nine Astros to face him struck out. He allowed none of the first 11 hitters to reach base.
Retiring a 12th was burdensome. With two outs in the fourth and a perfect game still intact, Tropeano’s control escaped him. Eight straight balls to Carlos Correa and Josh Reddick gifted the Astros their first two baserunners.
Tropeano hit Gurriel’s right hand to fill the bases for Alex Bregman, who mentioned earlier in this series the Angels’ propensity to throw off-speed pitches.
Bregman saw two sliders. Both missed the strike zone. Tropeano returned with a four-seam fastball that leaked over the plate. Bregman roped it to left field for a double, clearing the bases and affording his team a 3-0 lead — its largest of the series.
“They didn’t throw the off-speed for strikes, so I switched to fastball,” Bregman said. “Got a fastball over the middle of the plate, was fortunate enough to put a good swing on it. … When we get people on base, we have to lock it in and come through for the team.”
First HR for Altuve
Jose Altuve led off the seventh with a home run off Tropeano. Altuve’s teammates remained silent while their leader descended into the dugout. Ribbing was necessary, the silent treatment their tease of choice.
This familiar site took so long to develop. Twenty-six games and 113 plate appearances passed without an Altuve home run. He was the final member of the regular starting lineup to hit his first.
Hinch dutifully participated in greeting his second baseman with silence. Winning three consecutive games against his team is difficult. The Astros have lost three series, but no team accomplished a sweep against them.
Backed against the orange wall inside the clubhouse, Verlander spoke of the clichéd yet required mindset to take the ball with conviction and an unwillingness to allow a sweep to occur and a losing streak to linger.
“My job is to end it,” Verlander said.