Houston Astros left-handed starter Framber Valdez has denied intentionally crossing up and hitting his catcher with a pitch moments after allowing a grand slam to New York Yankees outfielder Trent Grisham on Tuesday night.
With two out in the top of the fifth inning of the Astros eventual 7-1 loss to the visiting Yankees, Valdez ignored catcher César Salazar’s instructions to disengage and instead delivered a middle-middle sinker to Grisham, who hit it 358 feet to left center and blew the game open. On Valdez’s second pitch to the next batter, Anthony Volpe, this happened:
A battery gets «crossed up» when the catcher calls for a certain type of pitch in a certain location, but the pitcher throws something entirely different. When a crossed-up catcher gets a fastball instead of a breaking ball or something offspeed, what you see above can happen. In this instance, Salazar appears to be calling for Valdez to bury something softer below the zone — probably his curve or changeup since he’s facing a right-handed batter — but the 93-mph sinker plainly surprises him and nails him right in the midsection. Salazar seems to give a stare toward the mound before gathering himself, and Valdez, rather than making some gesture of apology or concern, turns his back on Salazar and walks away. As strange as it is to see a catcher get crossed up, the reaction in this instance is perhaps even stranger.
To hear both pitcher and catcher tell it, however, nothing was untoward.
«It was a pitch [to Grisham] I wanted to throw. I called for that pitch. I wasn’t able to locate it,» Valdez said postgame through an interpreter. «Then afterwards, we just got crossed up. I called for that pitch, and we got crossed up. … I said sorry to him, and I take full responsibility for that.»
Valdez also denied any intent behind the pitch that struck Salazar. As for Salazar, he suggested the crowd noise following the grand slam may have played a role in the confusion, and he also raised the possibility that he pressed the wrong button on his PitchCom device, which communicates pitch calls between catcher and pitcher. Astros manager Joe Espada summoned both players to his office following the game, according to The Athletic.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the controversial incident was part of a game crucial to both teams. The Yankees’ win kept them even with the Red Sox atop the AL wild card standings and brought them to within 2 ½ games of the first-place Blue Jays in the AL East race. Houston’s loss in tandem with the Mariners’ same result means they maintained their three-game lead in the AL West.
