Results not reflecting France's steady presence

LOS ANGELES -- It’s becoming a frustrating pattern: J.P. France turns in a strong starting performance, but the Astros can’t find a way to win.

The 28-year-old rookie has thrown a quality start each of his past four times out, including in the Astros’ 3-2 loss to the Dodgers on Friday night at Dodger Stadium. However, Houston has dropped three of those games.

Facing one of baseball’s most intimidating offenses, France battled his way through six innings, allowing eight hits and two walks but navigating through that traffic to allow just three runs.

“That was just a grind of a lineup,” said France. “You had to make your pitch every time. If you made a mistake, they're gonna hit it. Also, tough crowd. Obviously, Astros-Dodgers, I’m sure they probably had 50,000-plus people here. So it just all led to [taking a while] to get settled in.”

One of those mistakes came almost immediately, as Dodgers leadoff hitter Mookie Betts greeted France by driving a four-seamer left over the heart of the plate into the left-center-field stands for a leadoff homer. The right-hander has now allowed home runs in seven of his nine starts.

“If he could just stay away from the home run ball, you know?” said manager Dusty Baker. “But the home run he gave up was to Mookie Betts, a good hitter. [And in spite of that] he pitched well -- he pitched well enough to win the game.”

As it turned out, it wasn’t the top of the order that ended up being the biggest thorn in France’s side. L.A.’s bottom three hitters combined to go 6-for-7 with two walks against him. No. 7 hitter James Outman accounted for three of those hits, as well as two runs scored.

“When you handle big Freddie Freeman and [J.D.] Martinez and those guys pretty well, usually, you have a lot better chance to win the game,” said Baker.

France noted that Outman -- as well as No. 6 hitter Miguel Vargas and No. 9 hitter Michael Busch -- had a fair amount of familiarity with him, as they’d faced each other regularly in the Pacific Coast League.

It was that bottom of the order that put France in one of his most precarious spots of the night. In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Dodgers had runners on first and second and one out when Busch doubled on a ground ball into the left-field corner, allowing Outman to score from second.

Then, Miguel Rojas attempted to come in behind him.

An excellent relay from Corey Julks to Jeremy Peña to Martín Maldonado allowed the catcher to make the bang-bang tag at home, putting a stop to the Dodgers’ mounting rally.

“That was very impressive,” said Baker. “[Julks has] worked hard in the outfield, and to be in a stadium that he really didn't know the caroms, he played it well. Because that ball can get down there and get past you, and then everybody's running. But that was a well-executed relay play. We got the runner out at the plate and I thought that was going to be a big turning point for us in the game. It just wasn’t.”

Key to France’s effectiveness on Friday was some variation with his secondary pitch usage -- particularly, increased reliance on his cutter for a second straight start. Although it’s already his second-most-used pitch, in this outing, he threw cutters for 26 of his 93 pitches, good for 28 percent (well up from his 16.1 percent season average).

“I've tweaked my grip. I've got the velo back up,” France said of his cutter. “It's been a pitch that’s worked for me for the past two, three years and for me, I feel like it's gonna be a pitch that continues to work and gets outs for me.”

Pressed into service after Luis Garcia and José Urquidy went down with injuries in early May, France has been a steady presence for a beleaguered Houston rotation. He's gone at least five innings in all but one of his nine starts, and has been tagged for more than three runs just twice.

Yet the Astros are now 3-6 in games he’s pitched -- something that looms a bit larger as they now sit a season-high-tying 6 1/2 games behind the first-place Rangers in the AL West.

“Gotta just control what you can control,” said France. “Just go out there, eat innings, keep giving quality starts and keep giving my team a chance to win.”