After the feast of the release of the Brice Matthews recruit on Monday, Houston will turn to the AS veteran Le Gaucher Framber Valdez in order to win the Arizona Diamondbacks series on Tuesday.
Valdez will bring a sequence of nine consecutive victories – and a surprising star of the stars – in the second match of a three game set in Phoenix. The Astros have not won as standard since having swept the Dodgers in Los Angeles from July 4 to 6.
Matthews, playing in his fifth match in the major league, had two circuits off Zac Gallen and led five in the Astros 6-3 victory, which stopped the sequence of four victories of Diamondbacks and blocked their return to the relevance of the generic card.
“You are starting to see him believe in himself,” said Astros Joe Espada manager, “getting the land he knows that he can manage and then put the barrel on the ball. He is strong. Control the bat. Let the launchers come to you.”
Matthews, the choice of draft Astros in 2023 from the University of Nebraska, had been 1 for 12 after being recalled from Triple to Sugar Land on July 11 to reconstruct a list depleted by injuries. The astros have 16 players on the injured list.
“I saw myself in a way that I was galloping around the bases,” said Matthews about his three -point circuit with two withdrawals in the second. “I didn’t really know what to do. It was very fun. I hope I can do it a little more.”
Valdez (10-4, 2.75 ERA) must face his colleague from Arizona Eduardo Rodriguez (3-6, 5.94).
The Astros had lost seven of the nine, but with their second consecutive victory, improved their American League lead to five games on the Seattle Mariners, who lost on Monday.
Eugenio Suarez struck an empty base circuit, his fifth circuit in three games, but Arizona has dropped a match under .500 and dropped 5,1 1/2 games behind the Padres de San Diego for the third and last Nou Nou point.
“He plays like Nintendo,” said Arizona Torey Lovullo manager about Suarez, who runs the NL with 36 circuits. “It’s incredible. We are playing good baseball. We are fine.”
Valdez has not lost a 7-3 defeat for Chicago White Sox since May 2 in one of the four departures this season during which he abandoned more than three points.
He withdrew 10 and granted an unprecedented race in six rounds his last time, a decision without a decision in a 5-4 victory against Texas on July 12 which included a scary moment in sixth round.
Valdez was struck in the right calf by a single hopper of 103.8 MPH from Corey Seager to open the Channel, but he stayed to finish the round before being replaced in the seventh after launching 94 throws.
Rodriguez seemed to have turned the corner in June, when he had 2-1 with an MPM of 1.98 – just when the diamondbacks needed him most to help take over in the rotation left by the absence of Corbin Burnes.
He was hardly affected during his two departures this month, abandoning, when he abandoned 20 strokes and 13 points (12 deserved) in 8 1/3 rounds of defeats against the Royals of Kansas City and San Diego. He abandoned five circuits in two games when his whip went up to 1.67, second in the majors for the launchers with at least 10 departures.
Rodriguez was very successful against the Astros, going 1-7 with 7.51 ERA in 11 departures against them. Jose Altuve is 9 for 24 with two circuits against him.
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