for the second time in three starts<\/a>. Arrighetti owns an 8.74 ERA over his last seven outings since he received AL pitcher of the month honors in May, a stark and puzzling pivot.<\/p>\nHouston\u2019s lineup could not overcome the deficit. Its top half was quieted for a second consecutive night. The 1-through-5 spots combined to go 3-for-20 with one extra-base hit. Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez were hitless in the top two spots, with Alvarez in a 1-for-18 mini-funk.<\/p>\n
The series loss was the Astros\u2019 second in their past eight tries. An off day Thursday will offer a chance to regroup before they visit the Rangers, one of two teams sitting above them in the AL West, for a three-game set at Globe Life Field.<\/p>\n
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Walks hurt Arrighetti<\/p>\n
Arrighetti issued a career-high six walks, the most by an Astros pitcher in a game since Framber Valdez walked six March 28, 2024. He threw 38% of his pitches in-zone, per Baseball Savant, and threw 48 strikes on 94 total pitches. Three of\u00a0Arrighetti\u2019s walks came around to score.<\/p>\n
Arrighetti navigated two walks in a scoreless first. He began the third inning with walks to James Wood and Luis Garc\u00eda Jr. A one-out sacrifice fly from CJ Abrams drove in Wood. Daylen Lile doubled on a full-count cutter to give the Nationals a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Garc\u00eda grew it in the fourth. Arrighetti notched two outs before a Keibert Ruiz single. Wood worked his third walk against Arrighetti, who showed little interest in challenging the leadoff man and left-handed slugger. Garc\u00eda then sent a curveball into the right-field seats.<\/p>\n
Abrams attacked a 2-0 fastball for a home run to lead off the fifth. After a line-drive single and a check-swing grounder that found open space, Arrighetti issued a walk to Jorbit Vivas that filled the bases and ended his outing. Two runners he bequeathed to Alimber Santa scored.<\/p>\n
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Ready for the curve<\/p>\n
Garc\u00eda\u2019s three-run home run was the first home run Arrighetti has allowed on his curveball this season. Left-handed hitters didn\u2019t have an extra-base hit in 54 at-bats ending on the pitch before Wednesday. It was a glaring example of the Nationals being ready for Arrighetti\u2019s best offering.<\/p>\n
Arrighetti threw his curveball 43% of the time against a lineup with seven left-handed or switch-hitters. Lefties began the day with a .167 batting average and a 48% whiff rate against the pitch.<\/p>\n
The Nationals took 12 swings on the 40 curveballs that Arrighetti threw. Just one yielded a whiff. Seven put the ball in play. Five of those carried an exit velocity above 95 mph, the Statcast hard-hit threshold, with four falling for hits.<\/p>\n
Arrighetti induced just two whiffs on 33 total swings. His two strikeouts were a season-low. Arrighetti\u2019s earned run average is 4.50 through 15 starts.<\/p>\n
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Foiled by Foster<\/p>\n
Griffin, the 30-year-old left-hander who pitched the past three seasons in Japan, is quietly compiling an excellent season for the Nationals. He entered the day with a 2.87 ERA through 18 starts. Wednesday marked his fifth quality start in his last six outings and his seventh consecutive start allowing one run.<\/p>\n
That scored in the fifth. Yainer Diaz struck a leadoff double. Brice Matthews singled to drive him in. The Astros took three other at-bats with a man in scoring position against Griffin and were hitless in them.<\/p>\n
Griffin scattered five hits, did not walk a batter and struck out nine. He mixed seven pitch types while generating 22 whiffs, the most by a pitcher in an outing against Houston this season. Sixteen balls put into play against him averaged just a 79.4 mph exit velocity. Three qualified as hard-hit.<\/p>\n
No Astro reached second base until Isaac Paredes doubled with one out in the fourth. Griffin induced two groundouts to leave him there. After Matthews\u2019 run-scoring single, Griffin retired eight of his last nine batters faced, erasing the exception, a Paredes single, with a double-play grounder.<\/p>\n
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Rehab updates<\/p>\n
Shortstop Jeremy Pe\u00f1a played in his second rehab game at Triple-A Sugar Land on Wednesday ahead of his likely return from the injured list this weekend against the Rangers. Pe\u00f1a, on the IL due to a left calf strain, will be eligible for activation Friday.<\/p>\n
Lance McCullers Jr. threw four innings Tuesday in a rehab start at Triple-A and \u201cfelt fine\u201d afterward, manager Joe Espada said. Ronel Blanco threw two innings in that game before it was suspended by weather.<\/p>\n
Espada said the Astros are still discussing the next steps for Blanco and McCullers. The Astros have not named a starter for Sunday\u2019s finale at Texas, the rotation spot opened by Mike Burrows\u2019 option to Triple-A<\/a>. Espada said the team was \u201cstill having conversations\u201d about who will start that game, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spencer Arrighetti, who has largely struggled since the start of June, was tagged for eight runs in four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-366232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}