Inexperience starts to show after Astros’ anemic 7-2 loss to Seattle.
Odorizzi and bullpen wilt as young patchwork lineup manages one hit
SEATTLE — There is one reliable reliever and maybe four everyday players a casual baseball fan can recognize. Life or energy appear only briefly in their dugout. Baserunners reach but never advance. Starting pitchers can finish four innings before beginning a combustion. Relievers enter only to pour gasoline on the fire.
The Astros are in an awful way. Attention centers on the five players missing because of health and safety protocols. Their problems are far greater. Houston mustered one hit in a lifeless 7-2 loss to the Mariners on Sunday. Only the sun shining in Seattle left fielder Jose Marmolejos’ eyes prevented a nohitter.
The minor league-level bottom of the Astros’ order suggests such anemia is possible. Michael Brantley, Yuli Gurriel and Carlos Correa need to carry this carcass of Houston’s starting lineup. They finished the game 0-for-12. Correa reached base only after Kyle Seager refused to field a ground ball to start the second. He scored after Marmolejos lost Aledmys Diaz’s fly ball in the daylight. The baseball bounced over the wall for a ground-rule double. No other hits arrived.
“They can’t carry it by themselves,” manager Dusty Baker said. “The young guys are the young guys. You can’t fault them. They’re doing the best they can for the amount of experience they have. It’s still tough to take when you get one hit.”
The return of Houston’s missing position players might mask some deficiencies, but do not be fooled. This unwatchable stretch of April baseball illustrates the ways this season can careen into ignominy. Position player depth is almost nonexistent. Starters don’t get deep into games. The bullpen is beset by injuries but maybe more so by ineffectiveness. Baker’s decision-making can confound, but in reality, any choice he makes might lead to the same result.
Baker possesses only one sure option in his bullpen. Ryan Pressly cannot pitch in every pressurized spot. Houston’s starting pitchers refuse to go deep into games, forcing Baker into four, five — sometimes six — innings of reliever roulette. He left the dug
out Sunday to remove Jake Odorizzi after 42⁄3 innings of inefficiency. Seven of the team’s first 15 starts have lasted fewer than five innings.
“The shape of everything today was really good from just looking at it that way,” Odorizzi said. “Stuff was doing what I wanted it to, and that’s a good indication along with the fastball, swings and misses. Things are headed in the right direction, but that doesn’t win us any ballgames, to be honest.”
Odorizzi did offer flashes of brilliance. At one point, he retired 10 Mariners in a row. Six of them struck out. A 37-pitch first frame clouded all of it. Odorizzi walked two of the first four hitters he faced. Home plate umpire Brian O’Nora deployed a small strike zone and squeezed the starter on at least a few pitches. Odorizzi forced his front side to fly open in his delivery, leaving his arm trailing behind the rest of his body. Command became an obvious problem.
He synced up in the second inning. Odorizzi’s fastball showed tremendous life. Command came around. He required 39 pitches to finish the next three innings, offering at least some hope on this abysmal afternoon. Taylor Trammell struck a sharp single to start the fifth, ending Odorizzi’s rhythm and any control the Astros appeared to have with a 2-1 lead.
Odorizzi walked ninehole hitter J.P. Crawford as his pitch count neared 90. Brooks Raley began to warm, but Baker allowed Odorizzi to face dangerous leadoff man Mitch Haniger for a third time. Haniger hammered a baseball high into the Seattle sky, and Myles Straw sprinted backward to save the game.
“It was a tough sun at that point, directly behind home plate,” Straw said. “The way Haniger swung at that ball, it kind of looked like he was out in front. … I noticed the ball was back, and it literally just took right off in the sun. It drove me back. I saw it at the last second.”
Straw is here for his defense and an occasional stolen base, two things his predecessor almost made an afterthought. His task in 2021 is tall. Few expect Straw to replace the presence or power George Springer supplied. The Astros need Straw to succeed at his two areas of expertise and hope the cast around him can handle everything else.
Straw’s assignment is understandable when the Astros are at full strength. The skeleton crew currently in place asks for so much more. Straw is suddenly a veteran. For at least the next four days, the 26-year-old must play like it. He turned around in pursuit of the fly ball, leaving his back to the infield and the sun in his eyes.
Straw stuck out his glove for an over-the-shoulder catch. The baseball bounced off him and rolled around the warning track.
“I told him, ‘Don’t dwell on that, don’t let it beat you up, don’t let today affect moving forward because of a certain play,’ ” Odorizzi said of Straw. “He makes that play a lot of the time. It’s a tough play, and he just didn’t make it today, and I didn’t want that to affect him moving forward.”
Haniger headed to third base. Both men aboard scored runs, giving Seattle a 3-2 lead that Houston’s hapless lineup had no prayer of catching.
“It’s huge. It was a big point in the game. You could say it cost the game or whatever, but it’s nice for (Odorizzi) to come up,” Straw said. “He told me he still has confidence in me, and that means a lot. I gave that play my all. Obviously, I didn’t grab it, and it sucks.”
Baker left the dugout and opted for Raley out of the bullpen. Two lefthanded hitters loomed — Seager and Marmolejos — but before them was righthanded slugger Ty France. Righthanders have a career .915 OPS against Raley and slugged .475 in 48 plate appearances last season.
Baker wanted Raley to neutralize Seager and Marmolejos, but having him face a righty invites doubt. Ryne Stanek, a righthanded reliever with reverse platoon splits, warmed in the Astros bullpen as it happened. Stanek melted down in the ninth inning Friday night.
“You had to pick your poison in that situation,” Baker said. “We don’t know a whole bunch about Stanek versus lefthanders, but we know a whole bunch about Raley facing righthanders. Raley was very good, as you saw last year, against righthanders.”
France fouled off a cutter to fall behind Raley 0-1. Raley returned with the same pitch, located pitifully. France deposited it over the left-field fence, widening the gap Houston never had a chance to make closer.