‘Breathe. Smile. Relax’: How Framber Valdez learned to dominate on the mound
HOUSTON — The moment met Framber Valdez on the night of Oct. 20, in the fourth inning of the second game of the American League Championship Series, with the Houston Astros leading and the New York Yankees threatening as a result of Valdez’s own mistakes. Valdez had bobbled a slowly hit comebacker, then stumbled upon retrieving the baseball and thrown wildly to first base, placing two runners in scoring position and bringing the tying run to the batter’s box.
Astros pitching coach Bill Murphy looked on with heightened awareness. Murphy had coached Valdez through various junctures of his development, marveling at his command but noting the ways it wavered. In the early part of Valdez’s career, traffic would rattle him. Frustration would set in, focus would drift and starts would unravel. But Valdez had spent the last three years studying his own psychology and embracing meditation, an approach many — including him — have credited for his rise as one of the sport’s best, most consistent starting pitchers. In this moment, against the Yankees, awaited his biggest test to date.
“In that moment I thought to myself, ‘This is the true test of where he’s at,'” Murphy recalled. “This is where it can unravel.”
Alex Bregman walked over to the mound from third base; Martin Maldonado followed with a visit from behind home plate. Valdez accepted blame and kept three thoughts present.
Breathe. Smile. Relax.
Valdez retired 12 of the next 14 batters he faced, allowing those two baserunners to score but giving up nothing else in what would become a dazzling seven-inning victory. In the culmination of years of progress, he had met the kind of moment that so often ruined him and persevered.
His next start, in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night, will bring another of those moments. This one comes 10 days after the first, with his team in crisis, having blown a five-run lead in an extra-inning Game 1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Astros, a 106-win juggernaut in the regular season that went unbeaten through the first two playoff rounds, can ill afford an 0-2 series deficit with three games following in Philadelphia. They need Valdez to pitch like an ace in his matchup against Zack Wheeler. They need him to keep meeting moments. He believes he can.
“I feel really proud in that what I’m doing now reflects the progress that I’ve made,” Valdez said in Spanish. “You see the difference in my starts, in the way I conduct myself.”
Valdez, 28, was a struggling long reliever through his first two seasons in 2018 and 2019. He issued 68 walks and hit eight batters in a stretch of 107⅔ innings, struggling to lock down a consistent role and often buckling at the first signs of trouble. Heading into the 2020 season, the Astros’ director of Latin American operations, Caridad Cabrera, insisted that Valdez work with the team’s psychologist, Dr. Andy Nunez.
Valdez was initially hesitant, assuming that psychologists worked only on mental health issues. “But I eventually learned that’s not the case,” he said. “They’re there to help your mindset, to help you focus, to help you stay in the right frame of mind.”
Nunez taught Valdez techniques for mediation and controlling his breathing in stressful situations. It took about five months for Nunez’s concepts to begin translating onto the field, Valdez said, and even then the progress was gradual. Lapses in focus weren’t completely eliminated, but they became shorter. He started to control his anger when softly hit balls turned into hits, started learning how to distance himself from factors outside of his control.
In 2020 and 2021, Valdez posted a 3.29 ERA in 205⅓ innings, establishing himself as a fixture in a talented Astros rotation. In 2022, he reached a new level. Valdez — a ground ball master armed with a hellacious curveball and a devastating sinker, a rare mix for a left-handed pitcher — went 17-6 with a 2.82 ERA in an American League-leading 201⅓ innings. He threw a shutout, pitched in the All-Star Game, set a major league record with 25 consecutive quality starts and placed himself in the discussion for a Cy Young Award that will likely be won by his teammate Justin Verlander.
“It seems as if we all want finished products before they’re even finished,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “It takes time. It takes trial and error. It takes success and it takes some failures to get to this point. The more success that you have, the more confidence you have. Right now Framber’s at a very high level of confidence.”
It’s a stark change from eight years ago, when Valdez’s confidence was at its lowest point. He was an unsigned Dominican pitcher who had recently turned 21 years old, ancient in an international market that often sees players agree to deals at 12 and 13. Six teams had previously committed to signing him but pulled out after concerns with his medicals.
Said Valdez: “I felt like nobody wanted me.”
The Astros proved him wrong.
It was 2015, late one spring afternoon. Former Astros scouting supervisor Roman Ocumarez and former area scout David Brito were doing routes on the eastern part of the Dominican Republic. They had already visited four facilities, and the sun was setting, but Brito said they needed to see about an older kid with an intriguing breaking ball. They arrived at a darkening field, set up an “L” screen behind the catcher and placed Valdez on the mound.
When the first curveball his hand, Ocumarez thought the baseball was headed for his face. He quickly ducked out the way and watched it cut back over the heart of home plate for a strike. Ocumarez, reached by phone, was asked if he has ever seen a curveball that sharp from a pitcher that raw.
“No señor,” he said, then kept going back to the phrase. “No señor, no señor, no señor.”
Ocumarez and Brito limited Valdez’s initial workout to only a dozen pitches, then had him do the same from their facility the following morning. Ocumarez committed to signing him. He had him wait three days to take his physical in hopes that any worrisome inflammation in his elbow would subside and the doctors would clear him.
“The physical came back normal,” Ocumarez said. “He was destined for us.”
The Astros find themselves in the World Series for the fourth time in a stretch of six years, a feat made even more impressive by the seemingly arbitrary outcomes that have become more prevalent in an era of expanded postseason fields. In the time since their first, scandal-riddled championship in 2017, the Astros have lost megastars such as Gerrit Cole, Carlos Correa and George Springer and have found a way to remain dominant. The extension of their window is largely a testament to the development of players the industry tends to overlook, exemplified by Valdez, Cristian Javier, Jose Urquidy and Luis Garcia, key cogs within an elite pitching staff who were obtained on well-below-market deals.
Valdez is the best of them — and now he’ll face an even bigger test.
The lefty dominated the Boston Red Sox in his final ALCS start last October, but struggled mightily against the Atlanta Braves in his first World Series. He made two starts and gave up five runs through less than three innings in each of them, setting the stage for an upset.
He’s confident this time will be different.
“Now I understand that it’s the same game, the same hitters — I just have to study them and do what I do,” he said. “I also understand that things can go wrong. You can be the best ever and things are going to go wrong. I know how to handle that now.”
CLEVELAND — A full-fledged meet and greet was the first order of business for the Minnesota Twins upon their arrival at the ballpark Friday.
Making nine trades and jettisoning nearly 40% of their team before the deadline the previous day meant there were plenty of new faces in the visiting clubhouse when the Twins began their three-game series against the Cleveland Guardians.
Minnesota traded players including standout shortstop Carlos Correa, closer Jhoan Duran and four high-leverage relievers several years away from free agency, among them St. Paul native Louis Varland.
“It’s a hard pill to swallow, but maybe a reset was needed,” catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “We were curious to see how far the front office would go, and they decided to go really far.
“The dominos just kept falling. It just kept coming. It felt like it never ended.”
Just two years ago, the Twins won the American League Central title and advanced to the division series. It turned out to be the high point of their post-pandemic era as they missed the playoffs in 2024 and are currently six games out of the final AL wild-card position.
“A lot of guys who were on our ’23 run aren’t here anymore because of the trades, so that hurt,” pitcher Bailey Ober said. “The business side of baseball sometimes shows its ugly face sometimes. It was surreal watching what happened.”
Ober was one of 10 players who spent Thursday together in a room in the team’s downtown Cleveland hotel, keeping track of the leaguewide activity. The upbeat mood changed when several of them received phone calls from Twins president Derek Falvey telling them they were on the move.
Manager Rocco Baldelli and Ober said no one took the news worse than hometown product Varland, an emerging reliever who was under team control through 2030.
“It was hardest on Lou, and I don’t think it’s close,” Baldelli said. “He loves the organization, and he loves being close to his family. Yeah, he took it hard.”
To field a full roster against the Guardians, the Twins recalled six players from Triple-A St. Paul and selected the contracts of two more Saints. Baldelli held a team meeting as soon as everyone arrived at Progressive Field, then spoke individually with many of his remaining veterans.
All-Star center fielder and unquestioned team leader Byron Buxton, who is on the 10-day injured list with left ribcage inflammation, also joined the Twins in Cleveland.
“Just having him here is huge,” outfielder Matt Wallner said. “That gives us some sense of normal.”
Starting pitcher Chris Paddack, one of six impending free agents, was the first to go Monday to the Detroit Tigers.
Duran, who had a 2.47 ERA with 292 strikeouts over 233⅔ innings in four seasons, was dealt Wednesday to the Philadelphia Phillies in the first sign that the Twins were serious about trading veterans. Duran fetched Triple-A starting pitcher Mick Abel and High-A catcher Eduardo Tait.
“It’s hard, but it’s about making sure that you’re constantly trying to find a way to not just sit on your heels, hope that it all goes better and keep your fingers crossed,” Falvey said. “It’s a way to actually go invest in the future of the team, hopefully the short-term and the long-term.”
Outfielder Harrison Bader followed Duran to the Phillies, and reliever Brock Stewart was sent to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Reliever Danny Coulombe went to the Texas Rangers. First baseman Ty France and Varland were packaged to Toronto for Triple-A outfielder Alan Roden and Triple-A starting pitcher Kendry Rojas.
“I was in uniform, ready to play for the Buffalo Bisons when it happened,” Roden said, chuckling. “It was a pretty normal day until it wasn’t.”
Popular multiposition player Willi Castro went to the Chicago Cubs and reliever Griffin Jax was sent to the Tampa Bay Rays. Then came the headliner. Correa went back to his original team, the Houston Astros, in what amounted to a salary dump while also bringing back High-A starting pitcher Matt Mikulski.
“It was sad that Carlos left,” catcher Christian Vázquez said. “It was a hard day yesterday. We’re like a family in the clubhouse, so it was hard. It was a fun ride with all of them.”
Less than 22 months ago, the Twins were celebrating at a packed Target Field after Duran closed out a two-game sweep of the Blue Jays in the wild-card round for their first playoff series win in 21 years and the end of their record 18-game postseason losing streak.
Since then, they’ve been in ownership-ordered payroll purgatory in light of the hefty hit they took in regional television revenue after the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy that affected several other clubs from midsize and small markets.
Even the most aggressive scenarios the Twins envisioned prior to the deadline didn’t include Correa, who signed the richest contract in club history as a free agent after the 2022 season. But the Astros wanted him back and were willing to eat most of the roughly $103 million remaining on his deal through 2028, and Correa was willing to waive his no-trade clause to return to the team that drafted him. The Twins agreed to cover $33 million, due in four installments each Dec. 15.
Falvey was adamant that the Twins aren’t trying to bottom out with this rebuild as other clubs have done with varying degrees of success. The Twins kept both of their All-Stars: Buxton and starting pitcher Joe Ryan, who had plenty of suitors. They’re still confident in third baseman Royce Lewis, who has followed a series of injuries with inconsistency at the plate this season. Starting pitcher Pablo López, whose shoulder injury preceded a skid in June the Twins never corrected, will be back sooner rather than later.
“We’re here to win, let me be clear,” Baldelli said. “The locker room looks different, the team looks different, the lineup is different, but let’s go to work.”
PHILADELPHIA — Phillies slugger Bryce Harper was ejected in the seventh inning of Friday’s game against Detroit for arguing a called third strike on a check swing.
The Phillies scored three runs in the seventh to tie the score at 3-3 and had two runners on base with two outs when Harper faced Tigers reliever Will Vest.
Harper tried to check his swing on a full-count changeup from Vest, but third-base umpire Vic Carapazza rang up Harper, who ripped his helmet off his head in an outburst and shouted as he waved his arms at Carapazza.
Harper was promptly ejected and kept his helmet with him as he walked into the dugout.
“I left the batter’s box walking toward him, so I think it was warranted,” Harper said.
Harper said after the Phillies beat the Tigers 5-4 that he had yet to see the replay, which seemed to indicate he went around with his swing.
“Can’t get thrown out in that situation, especially with the ninth inning possibly coming around and my at-bat coming up,” Harper said.
WASHINGTON — The Milwaukee Brewers placed outfielder Jackson Chourio on the 10-day injured list Friday after evaluations of his strained right hamstring revealed more significant issues than expected.
Chourio was injured Tuesday while running the bases on a triple in the fifth inning. The move to the IL was made retroactive to Wednesday.
Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said the 21-year-old Chourio likely will require more than a minimum stay on the injured list.
“It won’t be anytime soon,” Murphy said before the Brewers’ series opener against Washington. “He was diagnosed a little more severely than we initially thought. To what extent, I’m not exactly sure. Nor are they. We’re just going to have to rehab it.”
Murphy said Chourio will receive a platelet-rich plasma injection.
Chourio is hitting .276 with 17 homers, 67 RBI and 18 steals for Milwaukee, which entered Friday with the best record in the majors at 64-44. He was replaced on the active roster by outfielder Brandon Lockridge, who the Brewers acquired Thursday from San Diego for pitcher Nestor Cortes, infielder Jorge Quintana and cash.
Lockridge, who hit .216 with five RBI in 47 games with the Padres this season, was inserted into the leadoff slot Friday against the Nationals.
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