Valdez tosses gem; offense struggles again
The 2020 Astros continue to confound. 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.
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 arrived when Houston’s offense continued to crater. Thursday, 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.
“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.
The Rangers struck four hits against him. Valdez let the leadoff man reach in just two of the seven innings he started. Control was an early issue but he walked only one hitter.
“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.
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.
“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.”
Kyle Tucker supplied a wall-scraping 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.”