Peter Lambert’s line on Sunday says loss. The way he actually pitched says something a lot closer to one of Houston’s best starts of the season.
Against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Lambert went 7.0 innings and gave up three earned runs on seven hits without issuing a walk. He struck out six and finished with his fourth outing this year of seven innings or more. For Houston’s most reliable starter, it was the kind of performance that held up almost everywhere except the final result.
The trouble started in the second inning, when the Astros were already ahead 1-0. Corbin Carroll lifted a ball at 99.6 mph that left fielder Nelson Velazquez tracked around the Crawford Boxes but couldn’t secure.
Carroll was credited with a hit on a play that was close enough to feel borderline, and Lambert ended up taking an earned run on the sequence. Arizona then played small ball to move Carroll to third, and James McCann followed with a sacrifice fly to tie it up.
The next inning brought another rough break. Geraldo Perdomo rolled a ball toward second baseman Jose Altuve, who went into a sliding attempt but couldn’t corral it.
The play wasn’t scored as an error, though it was the kind Altuve would likely want back. Then Ketel Marte was struck by a batted ball, creating a dead-ball situation and an out, but the scorebook still gave Marte a hit.
Nolan Arenado cashed in on the chaos with a two-run homer that pushed Arizona ahead 3-1.
After that, Lambert settled in and started to look like the pitcher Houston wanted all along. He worked 1-2-3 innings in the fourth, fifth, and sixth, then allowed a hit batter and a single in the seventh before getting through the frame without another run. That gave him a quality start, his first since July 22.
The odd split in his results remains. Lambert is 3-4 when he strikes out six or more and 5-4 when he doesn’t, a quirk that looks more like randomness than anything else. More importantly for Houston, most of his non-quality starts have come because he simply didn’t get through six innings; in seven of those eight outings, he allowed two runs or fewer.
So even with the loss attached to his name, Lambert gave the Astros a start they can use. If Houston gets four more outings like that over the final 18 games, the club can expect to win. The offense still has to pick it up, and the defense has to clean things up, but those are the kinds of issues the Astros have already shown they can fix.
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