Left-hander Dallas Keuchel tossed seven scoreless innings, but the Houston Astros wasted his performance as the bullpen was torched for eight runs in an 8-4 loss Wednesday to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Keuchel, who held the Phillies to two hits, finished the spring without allowing an earned run in 17 innings pitched.
”I felt just as strong in the seventh as I did the first, maybe a little bit stronger,” Keuchel said. ”That’s a good sign heading into the first real start of the season.
”This is where the fun starts,” he added. ”The end of spring it’s nice. You get yourself ready, but at the same time it gets kind of long and boring because none of these games or stats count.”
The Phillies used a suicide squeeze bunt by Cesar Hernandez to tie the game at 3 in the eighth. Maikel Franco followed with a go-ahead RBI single, and Andres Blanco hit a grand slam to cap an eight-run inning against Houston’s bullpen.
In a matchup between both teams’ opening day starters, Philadelphia’s offense struggled to get anything going against Keuchel. The Phillies managed only two hits off the reigning AL Cy Young winner.
”He’s ready,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. ”He was pretty flawless today. Really every inning. I mean he had a few seeing-eye hits, but we had to push him into the seventh just to get his pitch count and his up and downs ready for next week.”
Tyler Goeddel gave the Phillies their best chance to score against Keuchel. He singled to start the third inning and advanced to third base, but Goeddel was stranded after Keuchel retired the next three hitters.
Jose Altuve’s two-out, three-run homer off Jeremy Hellickson broke the scoreless game in the fifth. Those were the only runs Hellickson allowed in his 4 2/3 innings. He struck out five and walked one.
”I’m just working on getting outs, not working on too many other things,” Hellickson said. ”I felt great this spring. Ready for April.”