After a nice, solid drubbing of the Houston Astros on Friday night which evened the four-game series at a game apiece, the Detroit Tigers looked to clinch at least a series tie on Saturday afternoon. Despite a lovely grand slam early in the game, the Tiger bullpen couldn’t hold onto this one as the Astros prevailed 8-6.
Framber Valdez’s seventeenth start for the Tigers aimed to build upon two solid, six-inning, one-run outings in a row. Regardless of the start, though, walks have been a problem for him: coming into today he’d walked at least two batters in every start since the middle of May. As the late Jim Price used to bemoan on the radio broadcasts, “Oh, those bases on ****** !”
Facing the Tigers today was Kai-Wei Teng, making his tenth start of the season to go along with thirteen relief appearances. He’s found a home in Houston’s rotation after having limited success in San Francisco the past two years. That’s not to say it’s been all sunshine-and-roses lately; to wit, two starts ago he faced these very same Tigers in Houston and didn’t make it through the fourth inning, having given up five runs and a trio of taters. One of those was to Colt Keith, amongst the three he hit that lovely day.
The Astros struck first: in the bottom of the second Christian Walker led off with a double; Kerry Carpenter took a strange route to it and might’ve had a play on it in some parallel universe. That cost the Tigers a run as Cam Smith immediately followed with a sizzling line drive home run to left field.
Meanwhile, the Tigers were getting pretty good swings against Teng, but the line drives seemed to be finding gloves at an annoying rate.