Through the first three months of the season, Houston Astros left-hander Framber Valdez has ranked among the top contenders for the American League Cy Young Award.
Valdez (7-5, 2.27 ERA) will try to further his case Tuesday when he faces the Cardinals on Tuesday to open a three-game series in St. Louis.
He has the second-best earned-run average among the league's qualified pitchers, trailing only Tampa Bay's Shane McClanahan (2.23 ERA).
Valdez is coming off a 4-2 victory over the New York Mets on June 20, which snapped Houston's five-game losing streak. He allowed the two runs on four hits over eight innings while striking out nine batters and walking just one.
"It looked like he had a chance to throw a complete-game shutout, but those guys over there foiled his outing in the eighth, but he gave us all he had," Astros manager Dusty Baker said after that game.
Valdez is 4-1 with a 1.50 ERA in his past six starts. He has allowed two or fewer runs in 11 of his 15 starts overall.
"He goes out there and he's just a bulldog," Astros reliever Ryan Pressly told MLB.com. "He'll go after you. In this game, that's what you need. You need guys to attack the strike zone and go deep into games and save your bullpen and just give us a quality start and give us a chance to win, and he's done that every single time he's been out there. That's all, as a team, we can ask for. He does it every single time he takes the ball."
This will be Valdez's first career start against the Cardinals.
The Cardinals are coming off a two-game split with the Chicago Cubs in London. They lost 9-1 Saturday, then rallied from a 4-0 deficit to win 7-5 Sunday.
St. Louis allowed four unearned runs in the first inning Sunday, on errors by infielders Paul DeJong and Nolan Gorman, before launching its comeback.
The Cardinals return home with a 32-45 record -- last in the National League Central.
"We do believe we have a chance at this, but in reality, if we're talking about doing something sustainable, we're going to have to pitch better and we're going to have to continue to do what we can do offensively," Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. "Giving up four in the first, and some of the miscues, those things can't happen."
Marmol has not announced his starting pitcher for Tuesday's game. Jack Flaherty, Sunday's scheduled starter, was scratched with a sore hip, and Matthew Liberatore moved up to take his place.
That left left-hander Jordan Montgomery (4-7, 3.69 ERA) in line to take Tuesday's start, unless Marmol wants to shuffle his rotation with the New York Yankees coming to town for a weekend series.
Montgomery won his most recent start, 9-3, last Tuesday at Washington. He held the Nationals to one run on four hits in seven innings. He struck out six batters and walked one.
He is 0-1 with a 4.38 ERA in five career starts against the Astros.
Astros second baseman Jose Altuve is questionable for this game. He sat out Sunday with a sore heel after injuring it Saturday while running out a bunt hit.
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