The Diamondbacks were embarrassed by the Houston Astros in an 8-0 loss at Minute Maid Park. Despite getting Ketel Marte back in the lineup, Arizona hitters could not solve Framber Valdez, who blanked them for seven innings. That put extra stress on Brandon Pfaadt and Jordan Montgomery to keep up, which ultimately didn’t happen.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“Valdez had a real good turbo sinker going,” said Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo on the postgame breakdown on the TV broadcast. “We just couldn’t get the ball up, we needed to get it up in the zone. He was stubborn, he was keeping it down, you got to give him some credit.”
Since the second inning of Thursday’s loss to the San Francisco Giants, the Diamondbacks have been shut out for the past 17 innings with just four hits to show for it. For a lineup that has consistently produced at least six runs a night, it is a small concern with a pitching staff that still faces question marks in the final stretch of the season.
Perhaps it was those struggles to hit that led to a questionable baserunning decision by Geraldo Perdomo in the third inning. After collecting the first hit of the night to lead off the third, he was tagged out trying to advance to third on a ground ball hit to third baseman Mauricio Dubon. It was a frustrating mistake, as it ended up being their best scoring chance against Valdez while the game was still close.
“I think when you have these small opportunities, you get in a little bit of a forced mentality,” said Lovullo. “He knows you can’t run into an out there, you got to make that third baseman throw the ball across the diamond. Once he committed to it, I think he knew he made a mistake and he couldn’t turn back. You want to keep a man in scoring position there, at the very least get into a rundown and allow the batter-runner to get to second base.”
The big blows for the Astros came from their best hitter, Yordan Alvarez. Alvarez crushed three-run home runs in both the fifth and sixth innings off Pfaadt and Montgomery to turn a one-run deficit into an eight-run deficit. In the fifth, he got a fastball up and in from Pfaadt and crushed it to the upper deck to blow the game open. In the sixth, he reached out and lifted a sinker that split the middle of the strike zone and deposited it into his team’s bullpen.
“Alvarez is doing it at a high level and there’s no mysteries,” said Lovullo. “He’s a very powerful hitter, he’s a very smart hitter, and we made some mistakes. We went to certain spots too many times and we suffered the consequences.”
A scary moment in the game came in the fifth. Kyle Tucker swung through a Pfaadt sweeper, with the backswing clubbing catcher José Herrera hard on the top of the head. Herrera crumpled to the ground and was promptly removed from the game in favor of Adrian Del Castillo. The good news for the Diamondbacks is he has potentially avoided a major injury.
“He’s doing okay, he got through all of his testing just fine and I’ve actually got him in the lineup tomorrow,” said Lovullo. “He was removed from the game strictly for precautionary reasons just to make sure that he was okay, get through the [concussion] protocol, which he did, so we’re in a good spot.”
Next Game
The Diamondbacks will try to even up the series against the Astros. They send left-hander Eduardo RodrÃguez (2-1, 5.33 ERA) to the mound while Houston will go with left-hander Yusei Kikuchi. First pitch at Minute Maid Park will be at 1:10 P.M. MST.
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Michael McDermott covers the Arizona Diamondbacks, Arizona Cardinals, and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @MichaelMcDMLB
