ASTROS: KEUCHEL UNRAVELS; OAKLAND SWEEPS SERIES
The team was outscored 41-15 in four straight losses.
OAKLAND, Calif. — With five innings complete Sunday, Dallas Keuchel appeared en route to a vintage start.
The Astros ace had used only 66 pitches to record his first 15 outs while allowing only a run on a solo shot.
But in the sixth inning of a 10-2 loss to the Athletics that ended a miserable and embarrassing weekend for the Astros (86-57), Keuchel unraveled in an uncharacteristic manner. The lefthander known for his pinpoint command walked four batters and hit another, permitting three runs to score in the frame and exhausting 40 pitches to record two outs.
For the Astros, Keuchel’s sixth was merely the latest inning gone wrong in a series full of them. Swept in a four-game set by the worst team in the American League West, the Astros fell a game behind the Indians. Cleveland, with the best record in the AL (87-56), beat Baltimore on Sunday night to extend its 18-game winning streak.
After another day off Monday, the Astros will on Tuesday night open a three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim. Their magic number to clinch the AL West remains seven, meaning the earliest they could celebrate is next weekend’s home series against the Seattle Mariners.
Outscored 41-15
This weekend was a terrible one for the Astros. It was especially putrid for their bullpen, which allowed 29 earned runs over the four games. Overall, the A’s outscored the Astros 41-15 in the series. Astros pitchers issued a combined 25 walks.
“We got beat,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch, offering his succinct summation of the series. “They did a lot of things right and put up 40-plus runs. We came in here and got beat.”
Keuchel finished Sunday’s outing having allowed four runs and completed only 52⁄3 innings. His four walks in the sixth inning were one more than his previous season high for an entire start. He scattered six hits, only one of which came in the A’s three-run sixth.
“I just wasn’t making pitches,” Keuchel said of his final inning. “I just wasn’t staying through the ball and getting that late life and making it look like a strike.”
Keuchel began the sixth with a pitch count that portended a seven- or eightinning outing. But after allowing a leadoff single to Jed Lowrie, he just missed on a full-count sinker to Khris Davis. The pitch, Keuchel contested to plate umpire Ramon De Jesus, was a strike.
“That changed the whole inning,” he said. “But you’ve got to credit them for fouling off a bunch of tough pitches, and I just wasn’t making (as many) pitches as I should. That was the ballgame.”
Keuchel recovered from a 2-0 count to strike out Ryon Healy but then walked Matt Olson to load the bases. As catcher Brian McCann made his way to the mound, Francis Martes began to warm in the Astros’ bullpen.
Against Matt Chapman, who had homered in his previous plate appearance, Keuchel fell behind, three balls to one strike, and then missed on a sinker to force in a run. An 0-1 slider off the front foot of Mark Canha scored a second run.
Couldn’t quite finish
After inducing a pop fly from Dustin Garneau for the second out, Keuchel jumped ahead of Marcus Semien before once again falling into a full count and missing outside on a changeup, plating the third run of the inning.
“He wasn’t all over the place,” Hinch said. “Even though his walk total’s going to be high, he was one ground ball away and just couldn’t quite finish the inning.”
Keuchel’s walk of Semien, his fourth of the frame, spelled the end of his afternoon. Martes struck out Chad Pinder to cap the inning but prolonged a nightmarish weekend for the Astros’ relief corps in the seventh. After walking Davis, Martes surrendered a two-run blast to Healy that increased the Astros’ deficit to 6-1.
The runs were the 24th and 25th given up by the
Astros’ bullpen in the fourgame series. Luke Gregerson brought the total to 27 when he allowed a two-run homer to Boog Powell in the eighth inning. Tony Sipp made it 29 by serving up a two-run shot to Olson later in the eighth.
‘Let’s get out of here’
Afterward, Gregerson was at a loss for an explanation for the series.
“I wish I could tell you,” he said. “I don’t even know. I don’t know what happened today, either. Even the last pitch I threw (was) on the chalk and somehow the guy hits it out of the park. You don’t see that very often.
“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what happened this series. Let’s get out of here.”