Team showing knack for the big comeback
Hitless for 6 innings, offense erases 5-run deficit for 2nd time in 3 games
OAKLAND, Calif. — Through six innings Saturday afternoon at the Coliseum, the Astros had failed to muster a hit. By the end of nine, they had overcome a five-run deficit — their second such comeback in a span of three games — and defeated the Oakland Athletics 10-6 for their fourth win in a row.
The latest display of relentlessness from arguably baseball’s deepest lineup saw the Astros (8-4) score twice in the sixth, seventh and ninth innings and four times in the eighth. They finished with eight hits, worked eight walks and stole a seasonhigh five bases.
Before they scored 10 unanswered runs Wednesday in Seattle, an Astros team hadn’t come back to win after trailing by five runs or more since May 15, 2008, at San Francisco.
Now they’ve done it twice on this trip.
“There’s no panic in this team,” outfielder George Springer said. “We know that all we’ve got to do is string together three or four at-bats in an inning and we could be right back in the game.” Last April surpassed
Just 12 games into their season, the Astros already have ensured themselves a better April than last year, when a 7-17 month spoiled an otherwise promising campaign. They have won nine consecutive games against the A’s dating to last season. Sunday’s series finale presents an opportunity for their first series sweep.
“It just speaks to what we’ve got going on here,” catcher Brian McCann said. “We felt it in spring and got off to a little bit of a slow start swinging the bats, but we’re starting to find our groove.” Springer delivered the dagger in the eighth inning Saturday with a tworun homer off lefthanded reliever Sean Doolittle to cap the Astros’ four-run frame. The homer was Springer’s sixth, tying him for the major league lead with the A’s Khris Davis and the New York Mets’ Yoenis Cespedes.
The Astros’ late-toarrive offense bailed out starter Lance McCullers Jr., who allowed five runs and completed only 41⁄3 innings. He was outpitched by A’s lefthander Sean Manaea, who exited in the sixth with a no-hitter intact but two runs (one earned), five walks and 98 pitches to his name.
Manaea issued walks to the first three batters he faced in the sixth inning before inducing a line drive from Carlos Correa on which A’s shortstop Adam Rosales simply whiffed. Rosales’ error coupled with a misplay by center fielder Jaff Decker resulted in the first two Astros runs.
“He was just effectively wild,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said of Manaea. “He was around the zone but not really in the zone. He’s got good swing-andmiss pitches. The high fastball’s tough to hit. The down-and-in slider’s good. He’s got a pretty good changeup to righties.
“We were very uncomfortable most of the day early, and we couldn’t really break through with any sort of significance.”
The Astros broke through plenty against the A’s bullpen. The final four relievers to pitch for Oakland — Liam Hendriks, Santiago Casilla, Doolittle and Frankie Montas — were each charged with two earned runs.
“We played the first half of the game really well and probably as poorly as we could play the second half of the game,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. Aoki starts hit parade
Nori Aoki, whose seventh-inning single off Hendriks was the Astros’ first hit, and Jake Marisnick were the only Astros with two hits, but five players drove in at least one run. McCann came off the bench and had a single and two walks. Springer scored three times.
The Astros are 6-0 when scoring four or more runs.
“It’s a dynamic offense,” McCann said. “We’re never out of it.”
The double-digit scoring effort negated one of the worst starts of McCullers’ career. The 23-yearold righthander allowed five earned runs for only the third time in 39 major league starts. He exhausted 97 pitches to record 13 outs and later said he felt he was in the strike zone more than he was given credit. Trevor Plouffe and Davis tagged him for solo homers in the fifth.
A couple of hours later, it didn’t matter.
“I’m always the kind of guy that when I go out there, I feel like if I’m on, we just can spot me one or two (runs), and I can pick up the guys,” McCullers said. “But today, they picked me up for sure.”