Historically, Framber Valdez has been an extremely valuable pitcher for the Astros, accumulating 16.4 fWAR since his breakout in 2020. At his best, Valdez performs as an ace-level pitcher. However, at his worst, he tends to experience, for lack of a better word, meltdowns. It occurs at least a few times each season, so we’re not exactly talking about a new development.
The question is when those meltdowns will occur. It usually depends on his sinker and the shape of that pitch in any particular start. Valdez’s sinker is at its best when he keeps it buried in the zone, as is typically the case. But there are instances when he keeps the sinker elevated, usually due to a spike in velocity or generally poor location. In his start against the Giants on Wednesday, it was more of the latter, as Valdez couldn’t keep the pitch buried at all.
Combine an ineffective and elevated sinker with a couple of poorly located curveballs, and it’s no wonder the Giants scored five runs in the first two innings of the game, led by home runs from Wilmer Flores and Luis Matos along with a double by Heliot Ramos. Only his curveball (8 whiffs on 14 swings) allowed Valdez to hedge his sinker usage as the game progressed in order to even make it through five innings without further issue.
While Valdez avoided additional damage in the next three innings, his struggles placed the club in a suboptimal position for the remainder of the game. The lineup tried to chip away at the early deficit, beginning with Zach Dezenzo’s RBI single in the second to make it 5-1, followed by Yordan Alvarez’s two-run RBI single in the fifth inning. That fifth-inning opportunity — bases loaded with no outs — was Houston’s best chance all game long, which also drove opposing starter Landen Roupp out of the game. However, after Alvarez’s single that drove in two runs, Randy Rodriguez got Christian Walker to pop out, followed by strikeouts from Yainer Díaz and Jeremy Peña that ended the threat.
There was another opportunity to chip away at the lead, as Jose Altuve’s single in the sixth advanced Dezenzo to third base with two outs. However, Isaac Paredes failed to drive him in, flying out to center field. For the last three innings, the Astros did not generate a hit, and their only baserunner for the rest of the game came from Alvarez’s leadoff walk in the seventh.
While Luis Contreras and Ryan Gusto delivered scoreless innings in the sixth and seventh to keep the game relatively close at 5-3, the Giants ultimately added another run, making the score 6-3, thanks to LaMonte Wade Jr.’s solo shot in the top half of the eighth inning off Gusto. Although Rafael Montero threw a scoreless ninth inning, the lineup couldn’t generate anything resembling a comeback effort.
Currently sitting 2-4 after the first six games, the Astros head north to face the Twins in Minneapolis to close out the week with a three-game series. The pitching staff has shown some regression in the past two games after an impressive start in the first four games. Hopefully, the lineup sees some regression of its own, but that’ll actually be a positive development for an offense that has yet to score more than three runs in a game.