Framber Valdez
Framber Valdez (born November 19, 1993) is a Dominican professional baseball pitcher for the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball (MLB). Valdez signed with the Astros as an international free agent in 2015. He made his MLB debut in 2018. Early life. Framber Valdez was born in Palenque, San Cristóbal Province, Dominican Republic. He started pitching at age 16. Career. Minor leagues. Valdez signed with the Houston Astros as an international free agent on March 19, 2015, for a $10,000 signing bonus. At age 21, he was five years older than most amateur free agent signings from  his country. Two Astros scouts spotted him after a long day of viewing programs led by independent trainers. Watching him throw only six pitches, they offered him a tryout at their Dominican academy near Guayacanes. Valdez made his professional debut in 2015 with the DSL Astros, going 4–1 with a 3.68 ERA over innings. He split the 2016 season between the Greeneville Astros, Tri City ValleyCats, Quad Cities River Bandits, and Lancaster JetHawks, combining to go 4–5 with a 3.19 ERA over innings. He split the 2017 season between the Buies Creek Astros and the Corpus Christi Hooks, going a  combined 7–8 with a 4.16 ERA over innings. Following the 2017 season, he played for the Mesa Solar Sox of the Arizona Fall League. He split the 2018 minor league season between Corpus Christi and the Fresno Grizzlies, going a combined 6–5 with a 4.11 ERA over 103 innings. Houston Astros. Rookie season (2018). The Astros promoted Valdez to the major leagues for the first time on August 21, 2018. He made his debut that day, pitching innings and earning the win. With Houston in 2018, he went 4–1 with a 2.19 ERA over 37 innings. 2019. He split the  2019 season between the Round Rock Express and Houston. With Round Rock, he went 5–2 with a 3.25 ERA over innings. With Houston, he went 4–7 with a 5.86 ERA over innings. 2020. In 2020, he was 5–3 with a 3.57 ERA in 11 games (10 starts), in which he threw innings and struck out 76 batters (8th in the AL), and had the second-best home runs/9 IP ratio in the AL (0.637). He led the club in innings pitched, tied for the team lead in games won, and was named Astros Pitcher of the Year by the Houston  chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). On September 29, 2020, Valdez became the first relief pitcher to throw five scoreless innings in the playoffs since Madison Bumgarner did so in Game 7 in the 2014 World Series. Valdez has had great success in the playoffs and took his team into the ALCS and almost led them to the World Series. 2021. On March 3, 2021, Valdez suffered a fractured left ring finger after he was hit in the hand by a Francisco Lindor ground ball in a spring training game. Expected to miss months or possibly the  whole season, he returned on May 28. He led the major leagues in ground ball rate in 2021. In 2021 he was 11-6 with one complete game and a 3.14 ERA. In 22 starts he pitched 134.2 innings. Valdez started Game 5 of the American League Championship Series (ALCS) versus the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. He went eight innings to earn the win in a 9–1 final, limiting Boston to one run on three hits and a walk while striking out five. At several points during the game, Red Sox radio announcers Joe Castiglione and Will Flemming  commented that Valdez was rubbing the fingers of his pitching hand against his cheek and temple each time he was given a new ball, which prompted an angry response from Houston sportswriters; no hysterical accusation of cheating was filed by the Red Sox. Valdez was the seventh visiting pitcher at Fenway to go at least eight innings in a postseason game while allowing a run or fewer, and the first since Charles Nagy in 1998. 2022. On April 7, 2022, Valdez made his debut as an Opening Day starting pitcher, opposite Los Angeles Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani. Valdez  carried a shutout and had retired 15 consecutive batters until Mike Trout reached on a throwing error by rookie shortstop Jeremy Peña in the bottom of the seventh inning. Valdez, relying on his sinker in 50 percent of the pitches, got nine total ground ball outs, on the way to recording scoreless innings. As the Astros prevailed, 3–1, Valdez was the winning pitcher. Personal life. Valdez is married with 2 children.