A’s falter again versus Astros — now one loss from elimination.
The 2020 American League West standings suggest the Oakland Athletics were clearly the best team in the division.
The regular season, however, only tells us so much.
The A’s won the West by seven games and went 7-3 against the second-place finisher, the Houston Astros, but it’s the Astros who have wasted little time exerting their dominance in this week’s American League Division Series. Two games into this week’s best-offive round, the Astros hold a 2-0 lead over the A’s that looks anything but fluky after their 5-2 win Tuesday.
The Astros have the hottest hitter on either roster in center fielder George Springer, a deeper group of starting pitchers and a lineup that features more consistent offensive threats. Houston entered the week with a target on its back because of a
cheating scandal that left the A’s and the rest of baseball furious at the Astros’ blatant disregard for MLB rules, but that target remains for another reason.
Even without the benefit of knowing what pitch is coming, the Astros are still a wellrounded team capable of dominating, and they’re giving the A’s more than they can handle.
“We knew this would be a dogfight,” A’s third baseman Chad Pinder said postgame. “This is a team with experience in the postseason and great talent. We’ve got to find a way to pull ourselves out of this.”
Springer hit a pair of home runs and the Astros received seven strong innings from lefthanded starter Framber Valdez to lead Houston to its second straight win over Oakland and its fourth consecutive victory to open the 2020 playoffs.
After talking all season about the opportunity to get revenge on the Astros, an A’s team that ran away with the AL West must win three straight to advance and avoid the type of crushing heartbreak only a hated rival could inflict.
Despite regular-season success against Houston, Oakland is well aware the club it’s facing this week is finally at its best. An Astros team that lost ace Gerrit Cole to free agency and future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander to elbow surgery needed a bit of time for young and inexperienced pitchers to grow into their roles. But Houston has received fantastic performances from starters in recent weeks, including a critical one from Valdez on Tuesday.
A number of veteran Astros hitters, headlined by second baseman José Altuve, appeared uncomfortable at the plate this season in the wake of a cheating scandal that dominated offseason storylines. Houston also suffered early in the year because
several key players missed time due to injury.
Manager Dusty Baker’s team is now about as healthy as it can be at this point in the season, and the Astros are hitting like it, too.
“I think at different times during the season when we saw them, certain guys were injured,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said Tuesday. “They’re not at this point right now, and I’m sure they’re inspired about being in the postseason. It’s a team that’s been in the postseason for several years now and they’ve done well.”
No player is as inspired by October baseball as Springer, who already held the Astros all-time postseason home run mark before crushing one off Sean Manaea and another off reliever Yusmeiro Petit on Tuesday. Springer’s days in an Astros uniform could be coming to an end as he’ll hit free agency at the end of the season, but he’s making every last game against the A’s count.
“You’ve come to expect it,” Baker said of Springer. “This guy is a tremendous ballplayer, tremendous athlete and his concentration level rises during this time. He’s not missing pitches that he should hit and he’s hitting them out. Boy it’s fun to watch him perform like this.”
Despite Houston’s sub-.500 regular-season record, the Astros’ postseason success isn’t the result of unlucky bounces for the A’s or the hitter-friendly nature of Dodger Stadium. Baker’s roster is still loaded with motivated stars eager to prove they can win without artificial assistance and determined to quiet an A’s team that’s dearly missing its best player, Matt Chapman.
Chapman may have been the A’s best answer for Springer, but a hip injury that required season-ending surgery has left Oakland to rely on too many boomor-bust hitters who haven’t come close to keeping pace with the Astros.
As the 2019 World Series champion Washington Nationals
proved with their 19-31 start last year, it’s a fool’s errand to put too much stock in small earlyseason sample sizes. By October, the Nationals showed they were a juggernaut, and in the 2020 postseason, the Astros are proving the same.
After finishing the regular season 29-31, the Astros made quick work of the No. 3 seed Minnesota Twins and are threatening to sweep the A’s en route to another ALCS appearance. An Oakland team that so desperately wanted to eliminate Houston from the postseason looks overmatched, and nothing from the first two games of this series suggests they A’s are the superior club.
“You’ve got to put them away when you’ve got a chance,” Baker said. “You let them get off the mat, these guys know how to win. We’d like to win it (today) and not get any drama in Game 4 or 5. We know these guys have been here before and we know it’s not complete and not done yet.”