ANOTHER ROUGH START
In what might be his last outing as an Astro, Dallas Keuchel haunted by first-inning woes
The first inning and Dallas Keuchel don’t always mesh.
But Tuesday night, the Astros really needed them to.
The reigning World Series champs hosted Boston in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series and looked to their lefthander to guide them to a victory and a lead in the series.
But like he has many times before this season, Keuchel ran into problems from the start.
He headed into the game with high hopes. On Monday, he was all smiles and beaming about being able to start another postseason game at Minute Maid Park.
“I get chills thinking about it,” he said.
But after the pregame festivities, after a sold-out crowd cheered for him during the introductions, after he took the mound in what could be his final performance here as an Astros starter, the first-inning issues that have plagued him surfaced.
First, Mookie Betts slapped a single to center field. Next, Andrew Benintendi smacked a single to left. The third batter of the inning, J.D. Martinez, doubled to right and drove in the first Red Sox run of the game.
‘Good pieces of hitting’
Just like that, Boston had a lead, and Keuchel had more first-inning woes.
He allowed three hits and two runs in the first inning. The Astros would go on to lose 8-2 to Boston, leaving them trailing 2-1 in the series.
The first several pitches didn’t go his way, but Keuchel said they were the ones he wanted.
“That was just good pieces of hitting,” Keuchel said. “I made the pitches I wanted to and was just unfortunate with placement. There wasn’t a single hard-hit ball in the first inning over 91 miles per hour, so that’s just tough luck, (and) that’s kind of the damage they can put on you early.”
Keuchel’s rough starts to games have been a trend. Headed into Game 3, Keuchel had a 6.69 ERA during the first inning this season. From the second inning on, his ERA dropped to 3.14
“Obviously, I would like to start off a little bit better most of the time,” Keuchel said Monday. “But I think a lot of the time I was overanxious and not letting myself kind of calm down from the pregame warmup.”
He felt like he did that well — calmed down after warming up — in Cleveland. So he took the same approach Tuesday.
But Boston isn’t Cleveland. The Red Sox offense is a different monster, and the batters took advantage of his early missteps.
Keuchel settled in eventually and went on to pitch five innings. He allowed one more hit in the outing and no more runs were scored until the Astros’ relievers entered the fray.
He did walk two batters with two outs in the third inning. He escaped that thanks to Tony Kemp’s leaping catch against the left-field wall.
Keuchel threw 84 pitches (51 strikes) but didn’t record a strikeout in the game.
“They were just kind of going with the outside part of the plate, so I was able to land some breaking balls early and throw a few cutters in and elevated heaters and come off the low and away, and that afforded me five innings,” he said. “I would have liked to go out for the sixth, but I understand the reasoning.”
The bullpen had a slew of issues from there, and the Astros took the loss. They’ll be back at it again Wednesday night trying to even up the series behind Charlie Morton.
It’s too early to tell what will happen, but Keuchel might have pitched his final game for the Astros.
He will be a free agent this offseason and has done enough in his time with the Astros to earn quite a paycheck somewhere. Lefthanded finesse pitchers are appealing in free agency, so there’s a chance he is throwing elsewhere next year.
Former face of franchise
Keuchel was once the face of the franchise, which was working its way up from multiple 100-loss seasons. He helped the Astros rebuild and won the Cy Young Award in 2015.
This year, he finished 12-11 with a 3.74 ERA in the regular season. He led the league in batters faced (874) and hits allowed (211).
If Keuchel does pitch for the Astros again this year, in the seventh game of the ALCS and/or the World Series, there will be less margin for firstinning trouble.
But he isn’t getting that far ahead of himself. And he shouldn’t. The Astros have a lot of baseball left to play.
And if the ALCS has proved anything, it’s that either one of these teams can beat the other.
“It’s two really good teams going at it,” Keuchel said. “Sometimes one or two pitches can decide a ballgame. In the ALCS, you’re trying to do everything you can to get on base. You saw guys going the other way, guys taking pitches when they are usually swinging. It was a dogfight. Unfortunately, we were on the losing side of that tonight.
“From Game 1, it was a coin flip. These are two 100-win teams, so you expect some fireworks ever so often. I expect us to be back in the thick of things tomorrow.”