The first inning has been a problem at times for Framber Valdez in a Detroit Tigers uniform.
It was no different on Wednesday, Aug. 12, for the veteran left-handed starter in a 6-4 loss to the Cleveland Guardians. After a late exit from the bullpen warmups caused a three-minute delay for the first pitch, Valdez did not get comfortable on the mound right away.
Valdez walked Guardians leadoff hitter Steven Kwan, gave up a single to Chase DeLauter and plunked José Ramírez to load the bases before an out was recorded. He escaped maximum damage by inducing a double-play ground ball, but Angel Martinez drove in a second run in the top of the frame.
After the two runs given up in the first inning, Valdez has now allowed 19 earned runs in the first innings of his starts this season, which spans 23⅔ innings. Six of those first-inning runs came in a ⅔-inning outing against the Chicago Cubs on July 21.
“Sometimes it is a coincidence, but sometimes it relies on the intensity I bring to the game,” Valdez said through Tigers interpreter Carlos Guillen. “Sometimes, I have high intensity and I want to get the guys out super quick, and that sometimes leads to trouble because of the balance of the intensity of the game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
His early struggles did not sink the Tigers. Detroit immediately answered with two runs driven in by Spencer Torkelson in the first. They jumped ahead on a solo home run by Gleyber Torres in the third inning.
Another leadoff walk, this time in the fifth inning, led to more problems for Valdez. After giving Ramírez a free pass, Jo Adell clobbered a Valdez changeup to give the Guardians the lead for good.
Valdez allowed four runs on six hits and five walks in 5⅔ innings. He had to labor through hitter-friendly counts and around constant pressure on the basepaths. The Guardians had at least one runner on base each inning with 10 hits and seven walks.
“He sprayed the ball a little bit,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “He had to work pretty hard tonight. He had traffic. They got some hits. Some of them [were] hard-hit. Some of them not so hard-hit. Sort of the vintage attack against [Cleveland] is to make them create some action and play good defense. We played just OK defense tonight.
“But, he also put himself in some harm’s way with some tough counts.”
Struggles with command early in games, coupled with a team’s best hitters always coming up to hit, are two reasons Hinch pointed to for some of Valdez’s first-inning struggles. He fell behind to Kwan and Ramírez, while Adell and Martinez aggressively attacked early pitches in their at-bats.
64 of Valdez’s 102 pitches thrown were strikes (62.7%). He worked around hits in the next three innings without issuing a walk before the command issue reared its head again. Along with the fifth-inning walk before the home run, Valdez walked two of the first three batters he faced before getting pulled in the sixth inning. Ty Madden stranded both inherited runners.
Valdez put himself in tough situations while pitching out of the stretch. It also led to him running up his pitch count in an effort to battle back in counts.
“I don’t like giving up walks,” Valdez said. “Around 80% of the time you give up a walk, that runner scores a run. That is why I get upset and frustrated with myself when it happens. Because I don’t like that to happen because I know what the consequences are going to be.”
With the loss, Valdez dropped to a 7-8 record with a 4.26 ERA.
The Tigers still gave themselves a chance to win in the late innings. Kevin McGonigle scored on a wild pitch during a marathon, 12-pitch battle between rookie center fielder Max Clark and Guardians All-Star closer Cade Smith.
Smith eventually won the battle against Clark and picked up the four-out save. But the Tigers made him throw 38 pitches, putting his status in jeopardy for the decisive series finale on Thursday.
“I was happy with the battle, but I just needed to execute,” Clark said. “I need to find a way to get that runner in. But we will get [Smith] again. My takeaway from it is he’s probably not going to pitch tomorrow, which is big. We expended 30 pitches out of him. I was pretty pissed coming of it, but after it, you know that you set it up for tomorrow.”
Contact Jared Ramsey at jramsey@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: What the heck is going wrong for Framber Valdez in the first inning?
Reporting by Jared Ramsey, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Jared Ramsey, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
