Three homers power series sweep
OAKLAND, Calif. — The destruction finished as dusk descended on Ringcentral Coliseum, a place filled with petty pregame songs and salty in-game language now longing for this annihilation to end.
The Astros outclassed Oakland in every imaginable aspect of a four-game series. Thirty-six innings were played, and the Astros led all of them, culminating in a 9-2 win over the Athletics on Sunday. They ended only six offensive frames without a runner reaching base. They are the fourth club since 1901 to score at least eight runs in each of a season’s first four games. Not since 2001 had an Astros team started 4-0.
Houston outscored the A’s 35-9 in the series, shattering the Astros’ record for runs in the first four games of a season. The Astros out-hit Oakland 47-21. Yuli Gurriel had three hits on Sunday. Oakland’s whole team mustered four.
Anything the Astros attempted worked. Aledmys Diaz hit third in Saturday’s batting order. He supplied three hits and scored twice. Jason Castro caught his first game of the season on Sunday. He hit an opposite-field home run in the first at-bat he took, widening a lead that only continued to grow.
Baker worried about Castro’s matchup against A’s southpaw Sean Manaea. He limited lefthanded hitters to a .605 OPS in the first 97 games of his career. Houston had three lefthanders in its Sunday lineup. Two of them took Manaea deep.
The Astros exhausted Manaea across 42⁄3 average innings. He needed 101 pitches to procure the 14 outs. Kyle Tucker took a 2-2 sinker out to right center field in the second, supplying Houston a lead it never relinquished. Tucker’s solo home run ended an early 2for-12 slump. Carlos Correa went 4-for-17 this weekend, too. It mattered little.
Urquidy continued a concerning opening weekend trend for the Astros’ rotation, perhaps the only blemish during this beatdown. He finished only 41⁄3 frames and fired 101 pitches. For a team bracing for the innings bump after a 60-game season, inefficiency in the starting rotation was unacceptable. Urquidy, Cristian Javier and Lance Mccullers Jr. failed to pitch into the sixth against the A’s.
Oakland couldn’t take advantage. It loaded the bases in the first but managed one run. Urquidy walked the leadoff man during the third, but he never moved from first base. The A’s left four baserunners against Urquidy and went 2-for-6 with runners in scoring position. On the weekend, Oakland had three hits in 26 at-bats with runners in scoring position. Astros pitching punched them out 14 times.