KANSAS CITY -- With their offense stuck in neutral, the Astros are wasting some strong outings by their starting pitching.
Left-hander Framber Valdez was sharp on Saturday, just as right-hander Hayden Wesneski had been on Friday. But if your offense can¡¯t score, it adds up to nothing more than an exercise in frustration, which the Astros felt again in a 2-0 loss to the Royals at Kauffman Stadium.
Through their first 24 games this year, the Astros had not been blanked. But now it has happened in consecutive games and Houston will go into Sunday¡¯s series finale looking to end that streak of zeros they¡¯ve been seeing since arriving in Kansas City.
For the Royals, veteran right-hander Michael Wacha picked up where Seth Lugo had left off in the series opener. The Astros stranded six in Wacha¡¯s six shutout innings and had to battle uphill all night after Kansas City scratched across a first-inning run on Mark Canha¡¯s sacrifice fly.
After that, Valdez settled in nicely until Vinnie Pasquantino solved a changeup with a 34-degree launch angle and homered into the right-field stands in the fifth. Valdez wound up going the distance for his eighth career complete game (albeit only eight innings). But Valdez didn¡¯t have any margin for error and the Royals made their slim lead hold up in another pitchers' duel.
The Astros can only hope their offensive woes end soon.
Christian Walker, their big offseason acquisition, had shown signs of a late April uprising with five consecutive hits against Toronto earlier in the week. But Walker hasn¡¯t been able to maintain that momentum and struck out with two on in the sixth and again with two on in the eighth.
Jeremy Peña's career-high 14-game hitting streak ended Friday, though he did bounce back with a walk and single Saturday while again hitting cleanup. Zach Dezenzo got another start for Cam Smith on Saturday, but the offense couldn¡¯t break through as Yordan Alvarez and Yainer Diaz continued to struggle.
¡°We just aren¡¯t delivering,¡± Pe?a said. ¡°[On Friday], we hit the ball pretty hard but right at people. Today, we had some of those.¡±
Pe?a referenced the third inning when the Astros had two on with one out. Alvarez lined out to left and Isaac Paredes lined out to right.
¡°It¡¯s baseball,¡± Pe?a said. ¡°You win some, you lose some and you learn from them. Move on, because it¡¯s part of the game.¡±
The Astros fell back to .500 (13-13) with stalwart Hunter Brown taking the mound on Sunday.
¡°I feel like it says a lot about this ballclub that we have a lot of guys trying to find themselves and we¡¯re still in the mix,¡± Pe?a said. ¡°We¡¯ll be OK.¡±
Astros manager Joe Espada was quick to credit the Royals¡¯ pitching which has kept Houston off the scoreboard for 18 innings.
¡°I think we¡¯ve been pitched pretty tough,¡± Espada said. ¡°We faced two good starters and a pretty good bullpen.¡±
The silver lining for the Astros was that Valdez¡¯s complete game will enable the Astros to have a fresh bullpen behind Brown as they try to salvage one game in the series and head back home over .500.
¡°Valdez had a great start,¡± Espada said. ¡°Eight strong innings and a ton of strikes. He did a tremendous job for us.¡±