ARLINGTON, Texas — The numbers were in Martín Pérez’s favor. The on-field outcome was not.
Pérez — who’s pitched his best at home this season and against the Houston Astros for his career — turned back both those trends in the Rangers’ heartbreaking 12-11 loss to the Astros on Monday at Globe Life Field.
The 32-year-old lefthander lasted just one and one-third of an inning vs. the Astros, needed 57 pitches to record four outs and allowed six earned runs on six hits and two walks. It was Pérez’s shortest start of the season, the previous being a 3.1 innings, seven-run outing against the Tampa Bay Rays on June 11.
“Bad game,” Pérez said. “I think I was not using the bottom of the zone. I was not trying anything up, I think everything was down and that’s why they hit me.”
Pérez battled command issues from the start. Of the 12 batters he faced, he worked himself into six three-ball counts. After Pérez worked around a walk and a double for a scoreless first inning, he fell behind 3-0 to Chas McCormick in the top of the second inning, worked the count full, then left a sinker middle-middle; McCormick turned it into a 415-foot solo home run and a 1-0 Houston lead. In the next at bat, against Yainer Diaz, Pérez got ahead 0-2 before a low-in-the-strike-zone cutter was his 395 feet to right field for a second-straight home run and a 2-0 lead.
Corey Julks followed with a first-pitch single, Martin Maldonado walked and Mauricio Dubon (in a 3-1 count) singled to load the bases for Kyle Tucker, who hit a full-count, down-the-middle sinker 433 feet for a grand slam and a 6-0 Astros lead.
“Stuff was a little flat,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “He had trouble hitting his spots. You’re hoping he gets settled in there. He did a good job in the first inning saving himself, but had a big at bat there with Tucker. Lot of pitches, he saw a lot. He just got a ball he could handle.”
Pérez entered Monday’s game with a 3.24 ERA in 20 career starts vs. the Astros, the fifth-lowest against any team he’s faced off against, and the sixth-lowest against any team he’d pitched more than 10 times against. And in his six previous Globe Life Field starts this season, he had a 1.91 ERA.
