Astros make quick work of Blackburn
Righty doesn’t get out of second inning in 13-5 loss
OAKLAND >> The strict pitch limit Paul Blackburn was on turned out to be unnecessary.
Making his second start since coming off the disabled list, Blackburn was roughed up for eight runs on eight hits and two walks with no strikeouts over 1 1/3 innings in Wednesday’s 13-5 blowout loss to the Astros in front of 9,164 fans at the Coliseum.
It was the shortest outing of Blackburn’s brief big league career.
Blackburn had surpassed manager Bob Melvin’s expectations in his first start back from the 60-day D.L. last weekend against the Royals by allowing just one run over six innings of work. But going from facing one of the worst teams in baseball to the defending World Series champions is a whole different category. That’s why after the Astros (4425) nearly batted around in the first and only continued to make hard contact after, Melvin decided to pull Blackburn at just 47 pitches in the second.
“Balls were up in the middle of the plate and they had him on the run early,” Melvin said. “Typically with a starting pitcher, that’s when he’s most vulnerable. So I had to go get him early.”
Blackburn said he felt fine physically with no lingering effects from the forearm injury that kept him out over two months, it was just lack of execution on his pitches and falling behind in the count early that was the main cause for the poor outing.
“Warming up was fine. Once the game got going, it sped up on me a little bit,” Blackburn said. “That’s a good team over there. If you start speeding up, they’re gonna do damage.”
With the A’s (34-34) trailing 10-0 after just two innings, Khris Davis did his best to chip away at the early deficit.
Davis turned in his 18th career multi-home run game and third multihomer game this year, first blasting a laser solo shot over the wall in right off Gerrit Cole in the sixth, and a solo home run off Reymin Guduan in the eighth. The homer off Guduan was his 19th of the season.
Stephen Piscotty also crushed a three-run home run off Cole in the fourth, his fourth of the season. But they were matched alone by Astros slugger Evan Gattis.
For the second night in a row, Gattis drove in five RBIs against the A’s, crushing two home runs as part of a 2 for 3 night.
“He’s locked right now,” Melvin said of Gattis. “We just make too many mistakes against him. For the most part he’s a pull hitter and that’s where most of his damage comes from. He’s a good hitter and been around a long time for a reason, but we make too many mistakes to him around the plate.”
The low amount of fans who stuck around late at least got to see some history.
With the A’s low on relief pitchers and trailing 115, Melvin decided to throw outfielder Jake Smolinski out on the mound for the ninth. It was the 12th time in Oakland history the A’s have used a position player on the mound and the first time at the Coliseum.
Smolinski surrendered a two-run home run to Jake Marisnick, but bounced back to retire the next three batters and finish the inning.
“He had been thought about previously and he did a nice job,” Melvin said. “One thing you want is don’t get hurt and throw the ball over the plate. He did exactly that. We needed to keep some guys available for tomorrow and sometimes you have to make hard decisions like that.”
It was the first time Smolinski had taken the mound since his junior year at Boylan Catholic High School in Illinois. After warming up in the bullpen during a 12-11 14-inning win over the White Sox in April, Smolinski knew he would probably be the first position player up if such a situation came up again.
“I felt good, just trying to breathe and throw strikes,” Smolinski said. “They came out swinging. I didn’t feel any different. Just wanted to throw strikes and get out of there as fast as I could.”
Smolinski got through the inning on just nine pitches, all fastballs, and topped out at around 84 miles per hour.
The A’s have dropped six in a row against Houston and are now 1-7 against the Astros this season, having been outscored 62-17 in those games.