HOUSTON -- Leave Michael Lorenzen in or take him out?
That was the question facing Matt Quatraro on Wednesday night – not once, but twice.
Having thrown a very efficient seven innings against the Astros, Lorenzen took the mound for the eighth to protect a one-run lead.
“He was great,” Quatraro said. “I mean, he’s got 77 pitches going into the eighth. He had everything working. … He was pounding the zone. He was keeping them off-balance.”
Things turned quickly, however. After retiring Jake Myers on a grounder to second, Lorenzo gave up a single to Zach Dezenzo. Mauricio Dubón then doubled home pinch-runner Chas McCormick to tie the game, and Jeremy Peña, facing reliever Carlos Estévez, followed with an RBI single to give the Astros a 4-3 victory in the rubber match of a three-game series.
Much is made of being cautious when a pitcher is going through the order a third time, but Quatraro didn’t hesitate in letting Lorenzen pitch to Dubón, who had doubled in his previous at-bat. Dubón’s second double was just fair near the left-field corner. In the sixth, he had scored when Peña doubled to an almost identical spot.
“I mean, none of these decisions are easy, right?” said Quatraro, whose top five bullpen options – Lucas Erceg, Daniel Lynch IV, Steven Cruz, John Schreiber and Estévez – entered Thursday with a combined ERA of 1.46. “It’s the eighth inning, but [Lorenzen] had plenty of stuff. He was strong. That’s a really just unfortunate way for that ball [by Dubón] to bounce right there.”
Lorenzen was pleased that his manager stuck with him until the Astros had tied the game.
“I think we were all on the same page,” Lorenzen said. “That seventh inning [a clean frame that included two strikeouts] was strong and efficient, and the eighth inning started the same way. … I think we both were confident that was the right call.
“He sees my velo’s holding, my stuff is holding, and he believes that if I kept going out there and doing it, it was going to turn out our way. But the game of baseball had a different plan.”
Lorenzen, who threw 59 of his 88 pitches for strikes, wasn’t backing down in trying to protect a 3-2 lead aided by Maikel Garcia’s solo homer in the second and RBI double in the fifth.
“You can’t be afraid to give up a game, so I went out there, attacked,” the right-hander said. “If you’re afraid to get punched in the face, you’re never going to accomplish anything.”
One positive Lorenzen could take away was allowing only one walk. He said it was a sign the mental side of his game is on after he surrendered four home runs to the Orioles in a game the Royals wound up winning on May 4 at Baltimore.
“I’ve been trying to make a delivery adjustment for years, and I feel like I’ve found it,” Lorenzen said. “And so now the rest of it’s just mental. You know, in Baltimore you go out, and you give up [four] homers or whatever it is, like I said, the rest of it’s mental. So for me to go out and throw 14 1/3 innings with one walk after giving up four homers, that shows you where my mind’s at.”
Lorenzen had followed that start at Baltimore by allowing no walks in seven scoreless innings against the Red Sox on May 9. On Thursday, he walked just one while striking out five.
“All the stuff was great,” he said. “I’ve been feeling pretty good, and that’s why I’m just able to attack with everything, finish every pitch with some aggression behind it. And in the zone, they were swinging. A lot of times a pitcher can kind of start nibbling if you know they’re swinging, especially in this tiny stadium, you know? And they’ve got some guys with pop. Or you can just keep going and not be afraid to get punched in the face.”
The Royals took it on the chin this time, losing for the first time this season when taking a lead into the eighth. They had been 21-0.
A second consecutive one-run loss to the Astros left Kansas City 9-19 when scoring three runs or fewer. The Royals are 16-1 when they score four or more.
“They’re tough losses,” Quartraro said. “We play a lot of close games. We’ve got to figure out how to be one run better.”