Jordan Diaz had anything but a soft landing into his MLB debut. Astros starter Framber Valdez was steamrolling the A’s and struck out the rookie twice with a biting curveball in Oakland’s 11-2 loss on Sunday in Houston.
Valdez is putting together a season that has him square in the American League Cy Young conversation. His dominance made for a rude introduction for Diaz, who earned a call-up on Sunday after hitting .326 with a .881 OPS with Triple-A Las Vegas.
But with Valdez out for reliever Phil Maton in the seventh inning, Diaz found some light with his first major league hit: An inside-out single into shallow center field.
But that was one of few A’s highlights in an Astros beatdown. The reigning AL West champions took three of four games in the series behind a barrage of runs.
Ken Waldichuk, another A’s rookie, couldn’t escape the third inning after giving up five runs in the frame. Yordan Alvarez entered the game having gone 7-for-12 with four home runs (three in Friday’s game) in this series and added a three-run double that came just feet shy of a grand slam.
Alex Bregman and Yuli Gurriel added a pair of RBI singles to give Houston a 5-0 lead before the A’s got their first hit.
Unable to get a bat on Valdez’s sinker, curveball combination, the A’s didn’t get a hit until Shea Langeliers’ infield single in the fifth inning. Oakland capitalized when Valdez’s pitches started to stay up in the zone. Nick Allen and Tony Kemp hit back-to-back singles to set up for Dermis Garcia, who blasted a middle-middle breaking ball 106 miles per hour off the wall for a two-run double.
But the Astros had plenty of insurance. Martin Maldonado went 4-for-4 with four RBI, including a three-run home run in the seventh inning off Tyler Cyr.
