‘Calm and focused’ Valdez beats Ohtani again

HOUSTON — Ace of the Astros framber valdez admitted that he gets emotional when he has to oppose Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani. The same probably can’t be said for Ohtani about taking on Valdez, who bested him on Friday night for the second time in less than a month.

Valdez earned his fourth consecutive victory by pitching seven shutout innings, allowing five hits and striking out seven batters, to defeated Ohtani and the Angels, 6-2, Friday night at Minute Maid Park. Ohtani’s two losses this season have come against Valdez, who pitched eight innings of one run ball on May 9 in Anaheim.

“I definitely get excited sometimes pitching against Ohtani,” Valdez said. “Obviously, he’s probably the best player in the league right now, the MVP. But every time he goes up there, I look at it like he’s pitching against his teammates, and my teammates are also the ones helping me beat him as well. Don’t try to focus on the way he’s pitching. It’s like me, trying to go out there and throw strikes and throw them over the middle of the plate and get outs too. Luckily today our guys were able to catch him.”

jordan alvarez he hit a two-run home run off Ohtani in the first inning, making him the first major leaguer to reach 50 RBI this season. corey julks he added a two-run home run in the sixth to put the Astros up 5–0. Ohtani (5-2) allowed five runs and struck out six batters in six innings.

“He started with Alvarez, then he was getting tired at the end and he hung up a pitch on Julks,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “That was most of our races. How do we get to him? Nobody gets too close to him. We were lucky not to miss shots when we had a chance to hit him.”

Álvarez’s home run was the first of his career off Ohtani. Seven of his team’s 15 home runs this year have given the Astros the lead.

“He’s a horse out there, and when he steps in the box he’s to be feared,” Valdez said. “Pitchers who step into the box know who he is, and it really hasn’t surprised me what he’s been doing since the start of the season. He is a very good hitter”.

Valdez (6-4) proved to be an escapist Friday, striking out Ohtani and Mike Trout to end the third and stranding a pair of runners. He got a key double play to end the fourth after allowing two singles to start the inning. And to end the seventh, he landed a bases-loaded double play late in the inning on a sinker.

“He was amazing, and he got out of trouble with those double play balls like he usually does, and it saved his pitch count,” Baker said. “You could tell it was hot in there. Framber was sweating, Ohtani was sweating. They were both a little gassed.”

In his last five outings, starting with a win against the Angels on May 9, Valdez is 4-0 with a 1.59 ERA and a 0.85 WHIP, with the Astros going 5-0 in the span. In his last three starts, Valdez is 3-0 with a 0.41 ERA and a 0.77 WHIP, allowing one earned run in 22 innings with 19 strikeouts and four walks.

“In my day, we say bring the ball down, and when guys were throwing it up, we didn’t understand why,” Angels manager Phil Nevin said. “But with technology now, we know that (Valdez’s plumb line) has a path and it seems that it is in a certain place, but it is not. It’s a really tough pitch to hit, obviously.”

Valdez entered Friday with a career ground ball percentage of 65.9 percent, which is the highest in the majors since 2018 (minimum 300 innings), so when he hit three first-inning fly balls, he turned heads. Soon, however, the classic Valdez returned, who did not get another fly ball in the rest of the game.

Valdez said his 96.4 mph sinker to roll out Chad Wallach in a 6-4-3 double play on his 92nd and final pitch of the night was perhaps his best game. Maybe that’s why he came off the mound with a big smile on his face. Beating Ohtani again didn’t hurt either.

“I felt really good today,” he said. “I felt calm and focused.”