Houston — If you focused on all the traffic on the basepaths, if you calculate his WHIP, you missed the point of Mike Pelfrey’s start Friday night.
It wasn’t pretty. Not by anybody’s definition. But it was gritty.
On a night three relievers were unavailable — Drew VerHagen, Mark Lowe and closer Francisco Rodriguez — Pelfrey found a way to survive through six hard-fought innings.
What he did was compete. Hard. He kept the Tigers within a swing of tying the game, but against the reigning Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, that swing never came.