Oakland rallies to win in Houston

HOUSTON — Any reservations about the A’s being a legit team can be laid to rest. They’re good. After taking two out of three from the Indians this past weekend, the A’s mounted another late-inning comeback in Thursday’s 6-4 victory over the Astros to take three out of four from the defending World Series champions in their own house and make it two straight series wins over first-place teams.

The A’s (53-41) are currently the hottest team in baseball. Their 19 wins over the past 24 games are the most in baseball during that time, and they are a season-high 12 games over .500, the most games over since the end of the 2014 season when they last made the postseason.

The only thing that kept the A’s from a sweep was Wednesday’s bizarre loss that featured an ending you’ll probably only see once in a lifetime. But they’re more than glad to take three of four.

“We’ve been playing really well and came into this series really confident,” A’s third baseman Matt Chapman said. “To be in every game and come out with three feels really good. It confirms what we’ve been feeling.”

As they’ve done so often over this impressive stretch, the gamewinning run came in the eighth inning off the bat off Mark Canha, who smacked a go-ahead two-run double to left off Chris Devenski.

It was the 10th time in their last 23 victories the A’s have scored the game-winning run in the eighth inning or later, with their 69 runs scored in the eighth inning this season the most in the majors. “When you do it so many times, you have confidence doing it,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “It was some different guys today, too. At this point it’s a true team effort.”