Framber Valdez strikes out 11 to lead Astros past Rangers 2-1.
Offense still struggling, but Tucker’s HR enough in 11-strikeout gem
The 2020 Astros continue to confound. They are a club incapable of consistency, refusing to put both halves of a baseball game together for nine innings. Their offense again is absent, now buoyed by their beleaguered pitching staff. Only 10 days ago, the roles were reversed.
Their remaining schedule is easier than that of any other major league team, but each of these three games against the cellardwelling Rangers was laborious. The Astros scored six runs in 27 innings against a pedestrian pitching staff.
Three strong starting pitching performances supported them, though, and the Astros escaped with a series win. Framber Valdez spun a gem during Thursday’s 2-1 victory. Houston’s three starters in the series combined to toss 201⁄3 innings of two-run baseball, offsetting an anemic offensive performance.
On Thursday, relievers Josh James and Brooks Raley tossed the final 22⁄3 innings without incident to carry an otherwise miserable performance by the lineup. Houston holds a three-game lead over the Seattle Mariners for second place in the American League West. Ten games remain.
“It’s big,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said of the growing lead. “Every game is one tenth of the season. All we have to do is take care of our business.”
Valdez’s excellence ar
rived when Houston’s offense continued to crater. Texas’ Kyle Gibson tossed a complete game shutout Wednesday. A day later, the Astros encountered one of baseball’s worst starting pitchers in Jordan Lyles. They struck three hits against him. One barely left the ballpark but still represented the difference.
The Astros were outhit 5-4 and took just one at-bat with runners in scoring position: their final atbat of the game.
“It doesn’t matter what the score is,” Baker said. “You’ve got to win those close games, too, and you have to depend on your pitching sometimes, depend on your bullpen sometimes, depend on your offense. Sooner or later, it’s going to be clicking.”
Valdez was wonderful across 61⁄3 dominant innings. He matched his career high with 11 strikeouts, all of which concluded on his curveball. Twelve of the 15 swings and misses against Valdez came on his trademark curve. After the game, Valdez joked his curveball was “97 percent” as good as it could be.
“No, no,” Valdez informed his interpreter. “100 percent.”
The Rangers struck four hits against him. Two did not leave the infield. Valdez let the leadoff man reach in just two of the seven innings he started. Control was an early issue — Valdez required 71 pitches to finish the first four innings — but he walked only one hitter. Houston’s pitchers walked just two batters all series.
“His control wasn’t where it usually was, but his curveball was working tonight, and they helped him out by chasing some,” Baker said. “But you don’t have time to pick up that curveball — it’s one of the best around. He kept us in the game.”
A one-out double by Sherten Apostel in the seventh ended Valdez’s night. James allowed a single to Eli White that allowed Apostel to score, hanging the only blemish on Valdez’s line. James and Raley struck out four in the final 22⁄3 innings.
The outing offered hope for a rebound. Valdez had allowed 13 earned runs in his previous 12 innings, inflating his ERA by almost two runs. Thursday demonstrated the type of dominance Valdez can be capable of crafting — even if against a Rangers offense with the second-worst OPS in baseball.
“Guys just executed against me. The batters executed against me, and that happens in baseball sometimes,” Valdez said of his previous two starts. “I didn’t change anything in my routine. I just focused a little bit harder, worked a little bit harder, and I had success because of it.”
Valdez engaged in a duel with Lyles — a familiar face mired in a miserable season. Lyles awoke with a 7.80 ERA, the worst of all major league pitchers who’d thrown at least 40 innings. His 37 earned runs were the most of any major leaguer. Nineteen of the 50 hits off of him garnered extra bases. The Astros chose Lyles with their first-round pick in the 2008 draft. He faced his former club on Sept. 1, yielding three earned runs in five innings. Lyles stymied the Astros’ listless lineup for seven innings Thursday.
Lyles retired 13 of the final 14 hitters he faced. The only interruption to his dominance was a seventh-inning throwing error. Josh Reddick rendered it moot with a weak popout to center field.
The Astros hit 12 fly-ball outs against Lyles. They did not take an at-bat with a runner in scoring position while he worked. Just five runners reached in total.
Kyle Tucker supplied a wallscraping home run during the second inning for all of the Astros’ scoring. The two-run shot traveled just 364 feet and had an expected batting average of just .100, according to Baseball Savant.
“It was questionable,” Tucker said with a grin. “It landed in, like, the first seat out there. I was hoping for it, obviously, but it was close.”
It snapped a 3-for-30 funk for Tucker, who must mash in the middle of Houston’s order to lengthen the lineup, one in desperate need of invigoration.