HOUSTON -- The six runs Astros that starter Spencer Arrighetti allowed in Saturday night’s 8-1 loss to the Guardians at Daikin Park came on three swings -- a solo homer and a three-run shot by Travis Bazzana, and a two-run homer by Kyle Manzardo. Damage is done how damage is done.
Those three pitches were enough to ruin the night for Arrighetti, who struck out eight batters without issuing a walk in six innings. There’s no doubt Arrighetti is throwing more strikes than he did earlier in the season, but he allowed as many home runs on Saturday as he did in his first 63 innings of work this year.
“I think there’s been some pitches kind of more in the heart of the plate, and they’re putting some good swings on it,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “He’s still creating some swing and miss, and he’s still punching people out, but there’s just been some pitches he would like to take back and probably get down under with the curveball.”
Bazzana planted the first pitch of the game -- a fastball -- over the right-center-field wall before Arrighetti set down his next six batters. Manzardo poked a fastball over the left-field wall in the third for a 3-1 lead, and Bazzana hit a homer to right-center in the fifth on a sweeper that made it 6-1.
“First-pitch homers happen,” Arrighetti said. “It is not the first time in my career, certainly won't be the last. I mean, dude knew I was going to throw a fastball, and he got it. Good for him.
“My stuff overall, I thought it was good. I made a couple of mistakes and I got punished. Other than that, I feel like I was in the zone a lot, competitive a lot.”
Arrighetti has walked one batter in 12 innings over his past two starts, and he threw 72.2% strikes Saturday (65 of 90 pitches), his highest strike percentage of the season. His offspeed stuff was sharper than it was last week in Kansas City, which is why he threw only 13 four-seam fastballs -- a pitch he had thrown 31% of the time heading into this season. He threw more sweepers and cutters than usual, as well.
“I feel like you can kind of tell, but by some of the swings and some of the takes that it was sharp,” Arrighetti said. “Obviously, all that sounds dumb to say when you gave up six runs. I don't know. I feel like I gave myself a good chance today with the way that I threw the ball, and they made some good swings.”
Arrighetti was baffled by how Manzardo was able to hit the 91.6 mph fastball he threw on the outer half of the plate into the Crawford Boxes in left field.
“I felt like I made a really good pitch, and he went down and got it, so that's good for him,” Arrighetti said. “Bazzana is a good player. He showed everyone that tonight. I don't know what he was, 4-for-4 with five RBIs? It’s a great showing for him. He's a young player. He's going to be good in this league. I feel like the adjustments that I needed to make after Kansas City were made, and it’s just some stuff didn't go my way tonight.”
Manzardo said the Guardians anticipated Arrighetti would throw a lot of offspeed pitches.
“I thought we did a really nice job of jumping his fastballs early when he did leave them out over the plate,” Manzardo said. “We kind of took the fastball away from him there for a little while. I thought our at-bats today were excellent.”
Arrighetti, who was named American League Pitcher of the Month for May after posting a 0.93 ERA in 29 innings, has a 6.95 ERA in 22 innings in June, but he’s walking 2.45 batters per nine innings and averaging 10.23 strikeouts per nine innings in June as opposed to May (5.29 walks, 6.83 strikeouts per nine).