HOUSTON — Baseball’s highest-paid left-handed pitcher looked every bit the part Tuesday night at Daikin Park. An Astros southpaw seeking something close to that salary stumbled, seemed to set up a young catcher, and, after the commotion calmed, got summoned into a meeting inside his manager’s office after a 7-1 loss to the New York Yankees.
Before it began, Framber Valdez stood at César Salazar’s locker. The beleaguered battery spoke in Spanish. Salazar sat in a chair still wearing his full uniform. Valdez, showered and sporting street clothes, stood over the catcher who just completed his 14th major-league start.
Bench coach Omar López interrupted the discussion to bring both men into manager Joe Espada’s office. Both players emerged with explanations, some differing in detail, but with one common theme: Valdez did not intentionally throw a 92.8 mph pitch toward Salazar’s chest.
“He’s my teammate. He’s always here for me,” Valdez said through an interpreter. “I don’t ever want to cause any harm to my teammate. It was something that I excused myself with. I (got) crossed up by mistake and I hit him by mistake.”
Optics, however, are problematic for a pitcher in his platform year and on the precipice of generational wealth.
Valdez’s duel with Max Fried on Tuesday night should’ve demonstrated why Houston’s homegrown left-hander could command a similar contract to the eight-year, $218 million pact Fried received over the winter. Valdez is a year older, but boasts similar — if not better — career numbers to his New York counterpart.
Instead, Valdez invited more questions about his disposition during difficult times: the ones interested teams will expect him to excel if they sign him this winter. Valdez already questioned his team’s defensive positioning once this season, prompting another closed-door conversation with Espada. The 31-year-old southpaw is also prone to visceral reactions toward plays that aren’t made behind him.
Tuesday offered another test of Valdez’s emotions, something the Astros have worked tirelessly to help him have more control of. Much of the credit goes to Dr. Andy Nuñez, one of the team’s sports psychologists based in the Dominican Republic. Nuñez, ironically, started one of his yearly visits to the major-league team before Tuesday’s game.
Valdez entered the fifth inning with two runs on his ledger and 68 pitches thrown. A one-out walk to Paul Goldschmidt preceded singles from Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge, loading the bases. A strikeout of Giancarlo Stanton left Valdez one out from stranding them. Only the left-handed-hitting Trent Grisham stood in the way.
Valdez misfired with a first-pitch curveball. Salazar punched the pitch selection into PitchCom, but after doing so, he appeared to motion for Valdez to step off the mound. Valdez did not and delivered perhaps his worst sinker of the night. Grisham crushed it into the Crawford Boxes for a grand slam.
According to Valdez, Salazar called a curveball, “but I wanted to throw a sinker.” Salazar acknowledged that he wanted Valdez to step off the mound “because we were going through some pitches.”
“I thought we had less time than we actually did,” Salazar said.
This is not the first time Valdez has deviated from a catcher’s game plan. He did so last season during a loss against the Los Angeles Angels while paired with Yainer Diaz.
Diaz, who had caught 22 of Valdez’s first 25 starts this season, served as Houston’s designated hitter on Tuesday. Backup Victor Caratini remains on the concussion injured list, so the task fell to Salazar, who guided Valdez through seven scoreless innings during his previous start.
“(Salazar) knows which buttons to press and he knows where to go when stuff is not working,” Espada said before the game. “His conversations in the dugout are important, also. He’s well prepared. It’s a good feeling when you have someone that you know you’re going to get a good game plan (for) your starter and you’re going to have a good chance to win the game.”
After Grisham’s grand slam landed, Salazar said the throng of Yankees fans cheering made it difficult for either him or Valdez to hear when the next batter, Anthony Volpe, came to the plate. During the second pitch of Volpe’s at-bat, Salazar said he “pressed the wrong button” and “was expecting another pitch.” Salazar set up low and away.
“He called for a curveball, but I already had in mind that I was going to throw a sinker, so that’s what I threw,” Valdez said. “That’s what happened.”
Valdez fired a 92.8 mph sinker down the middle. Salazar could not get his glove up in time to protect himself and the baseball banged off his chest protector. After it did, Salazar stared toward his pitcher. It’s unclear why Valdez would consider throwing at his catcher, but perhaps the grand slam or miscommunication angered him.
As Salazar stared, Valdez turned his back and took a walk down the mound, which is one of the in-game tactics sports psychologists have taught Valdez to use to calm himself when chaos surrounds him.
“It was not intentional,” Valdez said. “I called for a sinker and that’s the pitch I wanted. There was a lot of noise and I thought that was what he wanted me to throw, but no it was not intentional.”
Valdez does not wear a PitchCom device on his glove to call his own games. Asked how he could “call” anything given that circumstance, Valdez replied: “It wasn’t necessarily that I called for it. That was just the pitch that I had in mind.
“He called for the curveball, and I didn’t hear it because of the noise. When I realized that he didn’t want that, it was too late and I was already in my throwing motion. It was totally my fault in that case.”
Though Valdez appeared to show no remorse or concern for Salazar’s well-being after throwing the pitch, Valdez said he apologized to his catcher both in the dugout and in the clubhouse after the game.
“I called for that pitch. I threw it and we got crossed up,” Valdez said. “When we went back to the dugout, I excused myself with him and said sorry to him and I take full responsibility for that.”
Added Salazar: “Heat of the moment got to us. He apologized after. He’s great. There wasn’t anything bad about it. I just pressed the wrong button and I was expecting another pitch.”
Other than to confirm they spoke, Valdez did not share anything from his postgame meeting with Espada, the manager now tasked with quelling more noise during a furious playoff push — one only the best version of Valdez will help the Astros finish.
“He’s my manager. Of course I’m going to talk to him,” Valdez said. “There was stuff in the game that, it’s baseball, stuff happens. I would never want to hurt someone on purpose. It’s just stuff that happens and we were able to talk through it.”
(Photo: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)
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