No ‘A’ game from Oakland starters
Cahill symptomatic of tough series, but skipper stays stoic
While Athletics starter Trevor Cahill nibbled at the edges of the strike zone Wednesday, the Astros chipped away at him. They did not chase the righthander’s curving, darting, sliding and sinking pitches. Their hits were not struck hard or for extra-bases.
Slowly and surely — in a game that would feature nine relievers, 31 baserunners, and 310 pitches thrown over the course of 3 hours and 27 minutes — the Astros exhausted Cahill with five singles and six walks in his 31⁄3 innings of labor.
The Astros won 5-4 on Tyler White’s walkoff home run, but they exploited the A’s greatest inconsistency to take two out of three games and extend their AL West lead to 2½ games.
In an otherwise even exchange of hitting and relief pitching that led to consecutive one-run games, the A’s patchwork of veteran starting pitchers unraveled at Minute Maid Park.
“They’ve got great hitters,” Cahill said. “There’s a reason they’re in first place.”
His start ended with his final walk. Cahill issued it to Alex Bregman with the bases loaded, bringing Max Stassi home to put the Astros ahead 4-3.
Bullpens on parade
The A’s used five relievers, including Jeurys Familia, who ceded White’s home run. The Astros, despite Dallas Keuchel’s six innings, made the game a chess match with four relievers.
“I just didn’t have command of anything,” Cahill said. “Today I couldn’t get any of the off-speed over. The fastball command wasn’t that great either.”
The Astros did not do him any favors. They wore out Cahill like they had Oakland’s previous starters Brett Anderson and Edwin Jackson. None made it into the sixth inning. They combined to allowed 10 runs in 102⁄3 innings.
“We just didn’t do a good enough job going deep,” Cahill said.
The Athletics have scrambled to piece together a rotation since spring training, which inspired them to sign Cahill and Anderson. More injuries led to their signing Jackson, whom the Nationals released in early June, and acquiring Mike Fiers from the Tigers three weeks ago.
The group of pitchers ages 30 to 34 had performed promisingly, mindful that baseball’s highestscoring offense after seven innings and a vaunted bullpen kept the team in close games.
Before arriving in Houston on Monday, the rotation had a 2.43 ERA in August, but there has been a sense that the unexpected excellence would not last.
“Getting closer to September, we knew we were going to have to go pretty deep,” Cahill said.
Wednesday was the eighth consecutive game an A’s starter could not complete seven innings. The last to do so was Anderson, who landed on the 10-day disabled list Tuesday after he lasted 22⁄3 innings in Monday’s 11-4 Astros win.
Despite the wear and tear, the A’s feel like they can vault the Astros in the season’s final month.
“This was the worst series our starters have had in a while,” Cahill said. “So (if ) we don’t have the worst series we’ve had in a while, those games might be different.”
Race hardly over
Said A’s manager Bob Melvin: “Look what we’ve done in a month.”
At the end of July, the A’s were in third place, five games behind the Astros. They’ve whittled that deficit in half and vaulted the Mariners for second place. Dating to June 16, when the A’s stood 11½ games behind the Astros, they’ve gone an MLB-best 46-18 (.719).
“It’s not until you get to that (final) two-week period that you see the finish line,” Melvin said. “Between now and then, there’s a chance to be some significant changes.”
Said A’s catcher Josh Phegley: “Two of the top teams in the league going against each other, and we’re going to battle until the last day of the season.”
But it won’t be head-to-head. Wednesday marked the year’s final meeting between the Astros and A’s, with Houston coming on top 12-7 in the season series.
After the A’s won 4-3 on Tuesday, they blared hip-hop music and doused Nick Martini, who had driven in the go-ahead run, with water for a roaring celebration in the visitors’ clubhouse.
An afternoon later, the clubhouse was quiet enough to hear shower sandals clacking on tile and zippers sealing travel bags.
“The fans got their money’s worth,” Phegley said. “The intensity, where every pitch matters, and just the emotion that both teams brought to the table was a lot of fun.”
He let out several heavy breaths at his locker and smiled. It had been a long game.
“The chess match, the mental game we’ve got going against each other — you’re mentally exhausted at the end,” Phegley said. “They all feel long.”