Tense situation turns into a laugher
8 runs follow Valdez escaping jam in 7th with help of Correa
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Chaos loomed with the bases loaded and a game in the balance Monday night. Framber Valdez is in better charge of his emotions but still battles his self-control in spurts. In the seventh inning of a shutout, the southpaw seemed bothered by home-plate umpire Nestor Ceja’s strike zone. Valdez’s connection with catcher Martín Maldonado disappeared.
The battery cycled through signs they could not seem to coordinate. Valdez stepped off the mound thrice in a full count, causing the sparse crowd to boo. His payoff pitch sailed nowhere near the strike zone, sending leadoff man Brandon Marsh to first base and David Fletcher to bat.
No batter in baseball makes more contact than Fletcher. Valdez dared him during the game’s most tense moment. He spotted a 2-1 sinker over home plate. Fletcher lined it toward the one man able to calm the commotion surrounding this club.
Carlos Correa bent his body and snatched the baseball on a backhand. He rose, set his feet and sent a throw across the diamond. It bounced once but beat Fletcher by two steps. Valdez unleashed a smile while he sauntered from the mound. He pointed to the shortstop responsible for another game
saving play in a career full of them.
Correa’s mastery kept the Angels scoreless and stranded the bases loaded. Shohei Ohtani remained on deck and not in a position to inflict any damage. Valdez induced 12 groundball outs on Monday. Correa fielded seven of them on a night where he totalled four hits.
No defensive play was bigger than his final one. It allowed Valdez to escape and the Astros to breathe. A bludgeoning followed. Houston scored eight times in the final two frames, turning a tense, two-run game into a 10-0 farce at Angel Stadium. The victory, coupled with Oakland's loss to Seattle, shaved the Astros' magic number to six for an American League West title.
Marwin Gonzalez struck a ninth-inning grand slam to complete a 17-hit assault on the Angels’ beleaguered pitching staff. Jose Siri struck the game’s third pitch for a mammoth solo home run, continuing his compelling case for inclusion on Houston’s postseason roster.
Siri has taken 25 at-bats since his promotion. He’s struck out in 10 of them. Ten others ended in hits. His power is prodigious. A dearth of plate discipline mitigates it. The Astros’ lofty lead allows manager Dusty Baker to play Siri despite it, affording him invaluable experience during a monthlong evaluation.
Baker scheduled a night off for Jose Altuve on Monday amid the Astros’ grueling stretch of 17 consecutive games. He slotted Siri in the leadoff spot as a substitute. Angels starter Jaime Barria threw Siri two sinkers outside of the strike zone to start the game. A brutal four-seam fastball followed. It served no purpose other than to get back in the count and sat over the middle.
Siri pulverized it into the left field bleachers. The baseball traveled 426 feet. Siri stared at it for two seconds before beginning a jog up the first-base line and the Astros’ all-out assault.
Three of Houston’s next five hitters struck singles. Yordan Alvarez annihilated one through the Angels’ pull shift on the right side. It exited his bat at 115.1 mph, the fourth hardest-hit ball by an Astro this season.
Alvarez scored on Correa’s two-strike hit up the middle, affording Valdez a two-run lead before he tossed a pitch.
Valdez spun seven scoreless innings and showed no side effects of the cut index finger that caused him to miss his last start. He struck out six and threw 60 of his 98 pitches for strikes. His early pitch efficiency invited wonder whether he could finish the game.
Valdez needed just 57 pitches to complete five innings. He threw a seven-pitch third and six-pitch fourth, inducing early contact outs with a darting sinker and cunning curveball. Velocity on his sinker spiked to 95.8 mph on a full-count offering to Ohtani during the first. Valdez only threw two harder pitches all season.
Valdez averaged 93.7 mph with his sinker, 1.4 mph above his season average. His command generated encouragement. It wavered slightly in the sixth with a four-pitch walk to Phil Gosselin that put the tying run aboard. Jared Walsh’s groundout to Gonzalez stranded him there.
A single to start the seventh put Valdez in more danger. A four-pitch walk to nine-hole hitter Jack Mayfield only exacerbated the issue. Marsh worked another, bringing Fletcher to the plate with a chance to capture the lead. Correa did not allow it.