{"id":101167,"date":"2025-07-29T04:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T04:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/101167\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T04:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T04:35:09","slug":"valdez-faults-astros-uncomfortable-defensive-shift-after-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/101167\/","title":{"rendered":"Valdez faults Astros’ ‘uncomfortable’ defensive shift after loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON — Houston<\/a> ace Framber Valdez<\/a> expressed frustration about the defensive positioning on a play in the sixth inning Monday night that led to the only run he allowed in the Astros’ 2-1 loss<\/a> to the Washington Nationals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There were two outs in the sixth when Valdez walked Josh Bell<\/a>. NathanielLowe’s groundball double to the right field corner scored Bell and tied the game at 1.<\/p>\n

Valdez wasn’t happy that right fielder Taylor Trammell<\/a> was shifted halfway to center field instead of in right field on the play.<\/p>\n

“I saw the right fielder playing center field and, you know, we have a center fielder for that,” Valdez told reporters in Spanish through a translator. “I feel like the right fielder should have been playing right field. I was uncomfortable with that.”<\/p>\n

Valdez was asked if he addressed the positioning with the coaching staff.<\/p>\n

“I don’t have to ask the coaches about that,” he said. “I feel like baseball is a game of common sense. With me as a lefty pitcher, they don’t hit a lot of fly balls against me.”<\/p>\n

Valdez allowed three hits and a run while tying a season high with 12 strikeouts in six innings to become the 10th pitcher in franchise history to reach 1,000 career strikeouts (1,007).<\/p>\n

Riley Adams<\/a> hit a solo homer in the seventh inning to give Washington the win and extend Houston’s skid to a season-high five games.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON — Houston ace Framber Valdez expressed frustration about the defensive positioning on a play in the sixth…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":101168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[65853,5723,4345,2382,1266,50,358,65852,3187,65851],"class_list":{"0":"post-101167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-65853","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-astros","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-trammell-taylor","16":"tag-tx","17":"tag-valdez-framber"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114934665919287315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}