DETROIT — Not sure how Framber Valdez's pregame bullpen session went Monday, Aug. 24.
But this much we do know: He had exactly as many swings and misses in the bullpen and in his warm-up tosses before innings as he did against the Tampa Bay Rays. Zero. Seriously.
Valdez didn't just fail to record a strikeout for only the second start of his major-league career. Not a single Rays hitter even swung and miss at one of his pitches. Rays batters swung at 41 pitches, and made contact on every single one, eight of them going for hits as he allowed run runs over six innings in the Tigers' 4-1 loss.
"Yeah, no strikeouts, but it doesn't mean I wasn't effective," Valdez said in a stone-cold-silent clubhouse after the Tigers' sixth straight loss, as team PR man Carlos Guillen translated the veteran left-hander's postgame interview. "I just did my best to get them to hit groundballs. They're very aggressive. They're very fast. So I do my best to have them hit groundballs as much as they could.
"Yes, they got their base hits and stuff, but in this situation, I just switched from swing-and-miss to get them to hit groundballs to the infield."
The Rays got to Valdez (8-9) for two runs in the first inning, after the first two batters reached on sharp singles. The second one, by ex-Tiger Ryan Vilade, was smoked, 114 mph off the bat, and it caught Tigers left fielder Brett Callahan a bit indecisive on whether to charge or stay back. It led to an error that put runners on second and third with nobody out, rather than first and second with nobody out. A pair of groundballs then led to two runs. Had there been no error, maybe one of the groundballs would've been a double, and it could've saved Valdez a run.
The Rays took a 3-0 lead in the fourth after a leadoff double, a sacrifice bunt and a squeeze bunt. One of the few balls hit in the air was Jonathan Aranda's towering home run to right-center in the sixth to make it 4-1.
Valdez went six innings, and walked two to go with the eight hits. It was technically a quality start, because of the error (and some otherwise dandy defense, notably by third baseman Kevin McGonigle and right fielder Zach McKnistry). It was his 13th quality start in 26 starts for the Tigers, after signing a three-year, $115-million contract this offseason.
But the big omission was the swing-and-miss, even if the Rays have the fewest strikeouts in Major League Baseball. He had struck out at least one batter in every start with the Tigers, even the start when he lasted just two-thirds of an inning against the Chicago Cubs in July. The only other start he failed to record a strikeout was in 2019 with Houston.
Tigers manager AJ Hinch credited Valdez for getting out of the first inning with just the two runs, but he said things could've been different had Valdez been pitched ahead more often. He threw first-pitch strikes to 16 of 26 batters.
"They're a good offense, and they make a ton of contact. They're one of the harder teams to strike out in general, and so you don't really come into the game looking for strikeouts," Hinch said. "You've got to get ahead. I don't think we did a great job of pitching ahead.
"The best way to create any sort of leverage where you can get a little bit of miss or a little bit of chase or a little bit of, you know, force him up and maybe get a miss is to get ahead and get to two strikes quickly. Maybe you can, you know, create that. They're not impossible to punch.
"I mean, Jackson (Jobe's) going to miss a few bats, and I'm sure (Troy) Melton will attack them, as well. But tonight, it never felt like we were in command of longer at-bats."
Most swings against a Tigers pitcher without a whiff in pitch tracking era (since 2008):
Framber Valdez, today: 41
Kenny Rogers, 4/18/08: 33
Duane Below, 7/25/11: 30
Jordan Zimmermann, 9/17/18: 25
Last MLB pitcher with 41+ swings without a whiff: Génesis Cabrera, 44, 6/4/2019 https://t.co/bzphUksDDH
According to MLB.com's Jason Beck, Valdez's 41 swings without a miss were the most by a Tigers pitcher in the Statcast era (since 2008). The last pitcher to get more swings without a miss was St. Louis' Genesis Cabrera (44) in 2019.
Valdez now has given up 20 earned runs in the first inning this season, for a 7.01 ERA, his first inning by far.
For his career, his first-inning ERA is 3.88, his second-worst inning. Monday was his 192nd career start.
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Somehow, Tigers' Framber Valdez got 41 swings and not a single miss
Leave a Comment