HOUSTON -- If ever a pitcher deserved to be rewarded with a win, it was Astros left-hander Framber Valdez on Friday night.
Valdez had aggressively attacked the Rays for nine innings, needing only 83 pitches to carve up the Tampa Bay lineup with his curveball, sinker and changeup. Still, when he walked off the mound after his final pitch, the Astros needed one more run to avoid the game being sent to extra innings and Valdez getting a no-decision.
Catcher Yainer Diaz made sure his batterymate -- and the rest of his teammates -- would leave Daikin Park as winners when he drilled an opposite-field, walk-off homer to right with two outs in the ninth inning off reliever Garrett Cleavinger for a 2-1 win over the Rays that was as scintillating as it was dramatic.
“We’re a team that always tries to look out for our teammates,” said Diaz, who got his second career walk-off homer. “An outing like the one that Framber had, we couldn’t afford to lose that type of outing. We really wanted to win the game for him.”
In throwing his second complete game of the season, Valdez tied Darryl Kile’s Sept. 8, 1993 no-hitter against the Mets in the Astrodome for the fewest pitches by an Astros pitcher in a complete game since pitch counts began being tracked in 1988. He had 14 ground-ball outs and nine strikeouts.
“I think it’s one of my best outings in my career so far,” said Valdez, who threw a no-hitter Aug. 1, 2023, against the Guardians, and last year lost another against the Rangers on a two-out homer in the ninth by Corey Seager.
Valdez never threw more than 11 pitches in an inning Friday, which he did three times. He had three nine-pitch innings and two eight-pitch innings, and threw just seven pitches in the sixth. He had seven one-pitch plate appearances, four two-pitch plate appearances and seven three-pitch plate appearances.
“That's as good as maybe we've seen him,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Going back and looking on the iPad, it was dominant. Sinkers run, everything running off the plate, strike-to-ball, the breaking ball was really sharp, lot of depth. He's a really good pitcher, and then he had maybe his best stuff to complement him that outing.”
Said Rays second baseman Curtis Mead: “I felt like everyone was kind of guessing, and it didn't seem like we guessed right, apart from [José Caballero].”
Valdez gave up a homer to Caballero on the second pitch of the game and proceeded to send down 24 of the next 25 hitters he faced. The only Rays batter to reach in that span was Jonathan Aranda, on an infield dribbler to first base that Valdez couldn’t catch at the bag.
“Once he gave up that homer, he got really pissed off,” Astros manager Joe Espada said.
The homer was a line drive into the Crawford Boxes off a sinker on the inner half of the plate.
“Sometimes there’s things that are going to motivate you to have a good outing,” Valdez said. “I think he ran into a little bit of luck on that second pitch. I said, ‘Yeah, this is the last run they’re going to hit off me. It’s the last they’re going to hit off me.’ That motivated me [for] the rest of the game.”
Espada had the bullpen stirring in the ninth after Valdez gave up a one-out single to Taylor Walls and walked Caballero on four pitches. Diaz, who had thrown out only three of 44 runners who had attempted to steal on him this year, threw out Walls at third to thwart a double steal attempt that was upheld on review.
“I’ve got to admit, it was going to be a tight situation with runners on second and third and one out,” Valdez said. “That was a big out by Yainer.”
Diaz’s biggest heroics would come an inning later when he hit the first pitch from Cleavinger -- he swung and put in play all four first pitches he saw in the game -- and sent a laser into the right-field seats to send the Astros to their fifth win in six games. It was Houston’s American League-best 17th come-from-behind win, and -- combined with the Mariners' 10-inning loss to the Twins -- moved the Astros into first place in the AL West.
“The fact that we went out there and Yainer hit that home run and we all got to celebrate and get Valdez that win, it’s great,” Espada said.