A’s win series, but give up 5 HRs to Astros in finale
Oakland had a chance to beat longtime sidethorn Justin Verlander on Sunday and move into first place alone in the division.
Instead, the Astros launched homer after homer to salvage the final game of the threegame series, outmuscling the A’s 9-4 at the Coliseum to move back in front in the AL West by one game.
The A’s were in no way crushed by this turn of events.
“You take the series win as a positive,” Oakland outfielder Nick Martini said. “Taking two out of three was a huge win for sure.”
The A’s, who had won six of their previous seven games, remain 3½ games ahead of Seattle for the second wild-card spot, and they’ve lost just one of their past 18 series.
“Look, other teams know we’re good, we’re a legit team,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said.
“They know we’re going to come out every day and battle and they’ll have to have their best stuff to beat us . ... It’s one of those games you’ve just got to flush it. That’s a good team.”
The defending-champion Astros hit five homers, the A’s three — two of them by Khris Davis, who has belted 36 this season, third most in the majors. He hit a first pitch from Verlander in the first inning and in the third, and he added a single in the sixth. Matt Chapman also homered off Verlander in the first, fighting back from an 0-2 count to make it 3-2 before going deep to dead center.
Verlander — 12-6 lifetime with a 2.73 ERA against Oakland in the regular season — exited with one out in the sixth, but the A’s couldn’t capitalize on that, managing just one walk and one single the rest of the way against four relievers.
It was Verlander’s 200th career win.
Sean Manaea started for Oakland and allowed nine hits and six runs in four-plus innings. In the third, he gave up a two-out double to catcher Martin Mardonado and a single by George Springer, then Alex Bregman beat the shift by rolling a grounder into right to set up Yuli Gurriel’s three-run blast.
“Bregman punches that ball through the hole and the next thing you know, it’s four runs. It happened pretty quickly, and surprisingly to me, the way he was pitching,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Two outs, nobody on and all of a sudden, they’ve got four runs. That’s obviously where the game turned.”
“That was just a bad job of gathering myself and taking the time to slow things down,” Manaea said of the two-out meltdown. “It was a bad moment right there.”
Evan Gattis, uncharacteristically quiet the first two games against Oakland, hit a solo shot off Manaea in the fourth, his 17th career homer against the A’s. His nine homers at the Coliseum are his most at any opponent’s ballpark.
In the fifth, Maldonado led off with a triple that banged high off the wall in left-center, then clipped Mark Canha’s knee and rolled away from the center fielder as Maldonado rumbled to third. The next batter, Springer, hit a rocket that third baseman Matt Chapman couldn’t handle, allowing Maldonado to score.
“My job is to give our team a chance to win and I just didn’t do that today,” said Manaea, who thought he’d left too many pitches over the middle of the plate.
“When your starting pitcher doesn’t have his best stuff against a lineup like that, you’re going to have a tough time,” Lucroy said.
Reliever Emilio Pagan allowed three of Houston’s homers. Maldonado led off the seventh with a shot to left and Bregman went deep two batters later. Marwin Gonzalez added one in the eighth.
Entering the game, Pagan had allowed only one homer in his previous 24 outings, a major difference from earlier in the season, when he allowed six in his first 20 appearances. Houston has recorded each of the past six homers off the right-hander.
Maldonado is the first Houston catcher ever to record a double, triple and homer in a game.
Sunday’s matchup drew 29,143, and it was just the second win in nine games for Houston. Oakland also took a series against Seattle to start the homestand; last-place Texas arrives for three games starting Monday night.
“You want to be greedy after you get two,” Melvin said. “But these are the two teams we’re having to fight and we took two of three from both — we’ve played well enough to take the series against two good teams, and that’s a positive.”