Results not reflecting France’s steady presence

LOS ANGELES — It’s changing into a irritating sample: J.P. France turns in a powerful beginning efficiency, however the Astros can’t discover a approach to win.

The 28-year-old rookie has thrown a high quality begin every of his previous 4 instances out, together with within the Astros’ 3-2 loss to the Dodgers on Friday night time at Dodger Stadium. Nonetheless, Houston has dropped three of these video games.

Going through one in all baseball’s most intimidating offenses, France battled his method via six innings, permitting eight hits and two walks however navigating via that site visitors to permit simply three runs.

“That was only a grind of a lineup,” stated France. “You needed to make your pitch each time. Should you made a mistake, they’re gonna hit it. Additionally, robust crowd. Clearly, Astros-Dodgers, I’m certain they in all probability had 50,000-plus individuals right here. So it simply all led to [taking a while] to get settled in.”

A kind of errors got here nearly instantly, as Dodgers leadoff hitter Mookie Betts greeted France by driving a four-seamer left over the guts of the plate into the left-center-field stands for a leadoff homer. The suitable-hander has now allowed dwelling runs in seven of his 9 begins.

“If he may simply keep away from the house run ball, ?” stated supervisor Dusty Baker. “However the dwelling run he gave up was to Mookie Betts, hitter. [And in spite of that] he pitched nicely — he pitched nicely sufficient to win the sport.”

Because it turned out, it wasn’t the highest of the order that ended up being the largest thorn in France’s facet. L.A.’s backside three hitters mixed to go 6-for-7 with two walks towards him. No. 7 hitter James Outman accounted for 3 of these hits, in addition to two runs scored.

“Once you deal with large Freddie Freeman and [J.D.] Martinez and people guys fairly nicely, normally, you’ve rather a lot higher probability to win the sport,” stated Baker.

France famous that Outman — in addition to No. 6 hitter Miguel Vargas and No. 9 hitter Michael Busch — had a good quantity of familiarity with him, as they’d confronted one another repeatedly within the Pacific Coast League.

It was that backside of the order that put France in one in all his most precarious spots of the night time. Within the backside of the fourth inning, the Dodgers had runners on first and second and one out when Busch doubled on a floor ball into the left-field nook, permitting Outman to attain from second.

Then, Miguel Rojas tried to return in behind him.

A wonderful relay from Corey Julks to Jeremy Peña to Martín Maldonado allowed the catcher to make the bang-bang tag at dwelling, placing a cease to the Dodgers’ mounting rally.

“That was very spectacular,” stated Baker. “[Julks has] labored laborious within the outfield, and to be in a stadium that he actually did not know the caroms, he performed it nicely. As a result of that ball can get down there and get previous you, after which all people’s operating. However that was a well-executed relay play. We received the runner out on the plate and I believed that was going to be an enormous turning level for us within the sport. It simply wasn’t.”

Key to France’s effectiveness on Friday was some variation along with his secondary pitch utilization — significantly, elevated reliance on his cutter for a second straight begin. Though it’s already his second-most-used pitch, on this outing, he threw cutters for 26 of his 93 pitches, good for 28 p.c (nicely up from his 16.1 p.c season common).

“I’ve tweaked my grip. I’ve received the velo again up,” France stated of his cutter. “It has been a pitch that’s labored for me for the previous two, three years and for me, I really feel prefer it’s gonna be a pitch that continues to work and will get outs for me.”

Pressed into service after Luis Garcia and José Urquidy went down with accidents in early Might, France has been a gentle presence for a beleaguered Houston rotation. He is gone not less than 5 innings in all however one in all his 9 begins, and has been tagged for greater than three runs simply twice.

But the Astros at the moment are 3-6 in video games he’s pitched — one thing that looms a bit bigger as they now sit a season-high-tying 6 1/2 video games behind the first-place Rangers within the AL West.

“Gotta simply management what you’ll be able to management,” stated France. “Simply go on the market, eat innings, maintain giving high quality begins and maintain giving my workforce an opportunity to win.”