Astros’ Morton added to AL All-Star roster
Lefthander’s six shutout innings supported by Bregman’s emerging power for 20th HR
The end of the season’s meandering first half was in sight. A five-time All-Star grabbed a bat. Victor Martinez is approaching 40, one of the few recognizable names among an overhauled Detroit Tigers roster with no plans of immediate contention.
Dallas Keuchel’s Friday night mirrored the 19 starts that preceded it. Soft contact found empty spaces, sometimes vacated by a shift. Baserunners came and went and double plays were required. The Tigers grounded into two of them, concluding two of Keuchel’s six scoreless innings at Minute Maid Park.
“What tells me when Dallas is right is when he reads hitters, he reads situations, he knows what he wants to do and he does it,” manager A.J. Hinch said.
Here, the bases were loaded and two were out in the sixth inning of a 3-0 win. Keuchel placed himself in this predicament, tossing uncompetitive pitches early in the count. The three men aboard reached after seeing a first-pitch ball. John
Hicks and James McCann singled, sandwiching the fullcount walk Nicholas Castellanos coaxed.
Martinez represented his team’s last hope. Keuchel ran the count full, spraying five pitches around the zone.
“Three uncompetitive pitches there really forced my hand 3-2,” Keuchel said. “I put myself in a bad situation and luckily I got out of it.”
The sixth pitch was low and away, the sort of two-seam fastball that can quell these uprisings. Martinez chopped it up the middle. Jose Altuve collected it, stepped on second base to end the threat.
Keuchel ambled from the field to an ovation and the best stretch of his season extended.
In his last 20 innings, the lefthander has allowed three earned runs. Six scoreless innings Friday whittled his ERA to 3.75, his lowest mark since May 30. He is 4-0 and sports a 2.17 ERA in his last six starts.
Tigers kept off bases
Friday, Keuchel began the Astros’ ninth shutout of the season, equaling their total from last year.
“It’s really nice,” Keuchel said. “You always want to be moving forward, not backwards. August and September is the grind because you can see the finish line. But you have to go about your business the right way every five days and continue to attack. It’s nice to finish off the first half on a high note.”
Keuchel did not allow an extra-base hit. Only one Tiger reached third base, though other chances were ample. A leadoff hitter reached base in three of his six innings. Detroit placed a man in scoring position with less than two outs in the third, fifth and sixth innings.
Keuchel’s changeup has been key. He is tossing it with movement for both swings and misses and early strikes. Six of the 28 he threw Friday were swung on and missed. In each of his last four starts, he has thrown at least 17 changeups. Preceding them, he had not thrown more than 13 in a game.
“I’m trying to attack the guys instead of trying to be perfect every single pitch,” Keuchel said. “The changeup has been going really well, so I’m kind of riding that. It’s provided me another quality pitch to kind of offset the guys and what they want to do the other way.”
Keuchel’s mastery overshadowed the return of a former teammate. Whenever the time arrives to write a history of Minute Maid Park, featuring Mike Fiers is required. His dismantling of the Dodgers on Aug. 21, 2015, is the only no-hitter thrown in this building, tossed during a tenuous race for the Astros’ first AL West title.
They did not secure it. When they did, last season en route to a World Series title, Fiers kept afloat a rotation ravaged by injuries during June and July. A nine-start streak from May 30July 21 lowered his ERA from 5.21 to 3.59. He led the club in innings pitched, effort for which he will be rewarded Saturday with a World Series ring.
Fiers struggles in return
Fiers’ return as a Tiger was unspectacular, a grinding effort that could have been worse. He yielded eight hits in his first four innings, equaling the number against him in his last 14 innings.
“When you can throw the first punch, that’s a good way to get somebody who’s been pitching well, is to hit first,” Hinch said. “We hit the ball pretty well, we also found some holes, but we just continued to put some pressure on him where he had to make pitches.”
Not once in his last three starts had Fiers ceded more than one earned run. Two came home before his first out.
George Springer led off with a tough ground ball in the sixhole. Ronny Rodriguez fielded it cleanly and threw it into the Astros’ dugout. Springer sprinted to second base, allowing the lineup’s hottest hitter a chance for early damage.
Alex Bregman watched a slider and curveball spin up and away for two strikes. Even while ahead, Fiers approached delicately, burying two changeups to which Bregman did not offer.
Fiers returned with a fastball, one he desired to dot the outside corner against the pull-happy righthanded hitter. It leaked too far over the plate.
Bregman, who so eagerly awaits his Home Run Derby appearance in three days, banged it off the signs that run along the left-field wall .
The 20th home run of Bregman’s season established a career high and team lead. Bregman passed Evan Gattis for the team’s lead in RBIs, too, with 63.