MILWAUKEE -- Hunter Brown may have already supplanted Framber Valdez as the ace of the Astros’ starting pitching rotation considering he’s an early candidate for the American League Cy Young Award, but when they needed an ace-like performance to snap a three-game losing streak, Valdez reminded everyone just who he is Wednesday afternoon.
Valdez picked up his first win since Opening Day by holding the Brewers to one run and three hits in seven innings, and Jeremy Peña broke it open with a three-run homer in the sixth inning to send the Astros to a 9-1 getaway win at American Family Field.
“Framber’s been dominant since I’ve been up here,” said Peña, who broke in with the Astros in 2022 and won World Series Most Valuable Player as a rookie. “It feels normal every time he does it.”
That "normal" hadn't happened in a while. The Astros had lost the previous four games started by Valdez, who was 0-3 with a 5.98 ERA and a 1.52 WHIP in that stretch. He threw 101 pitches -- the most by an Astros starting pitcher this season -- and struck out seven batters in his first career appearance against Milwaukee.
“Whenever I have a bad time, nobody can be happy with that, but I feel good in giving the team a chance to win,” Valdez said.
Valdez’s sinker/changeup combination proved to be effective against the Brewers. His sinker averaged 93.6 mph, and the changeup averaged 89.9 mph, which made it tough on hitters, considering the pitches came out of the hand similarly. He also got six whiffs on the curveball.
“The speed difference on both pitches was really effective, and then he had the curveball underneath to finish some of those hitters,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “I thought he was outstanding.”
On his final pitch of the game, Valdez came off the mound and fielded a slow roller off the bat of Vinny Capra near the third-base line and threw him out on a close play that was reviewed. Valdez has had some issues fielding his position in years past, but not this time.
“It feels good,” Valdez said with a smile. “It was something that was improvised. I didn’t know I was going to throw it. I didn't know it was going to turn out the way it did. I was going to leave it to [catcher] Yainer [Diaz] to throw it, but at the last second, I was able to grab it and throw it, and thankfully, it was OK.”
The Astros sent eight batters to the plate in the fifth and scored twice to take a 3-1 lead despite not having a base hit or getting a ball out of the infield. Peña swatted a two-out, three-run homer to left in the sixth off Elvin Rodriguez that made it 6-1. Houston drew seven walks and needed only one hit combined in the fifth and sixth -- Peña’s homer -- to score five runs.
“We had a lot of guys get on base and we had timely hitting,” Peña said. “That’s what wins you ballgames.”
The Astros went 2-4 on their six-game road trip to the White Sox and Brewers -- a trip during which they lost slugger Yordan Alvarez to a muscle strain in his right hand. Houston is trying to find its footing offensively, but Valdez served a reminder Wednesday that he and Brown at the top of the rotation remain a force.
“It’s a big win for our team,” Espada said. “We are not quite there yet offensively, and we’re finding ourselves playing .500 baseball [18-18], so once this offense gets going, we’ll take off. Framber was big. He really wanted to go out there and get this win for us, and I think him and Diaz did a really good job working together.”