A's suffer rare loss with Blackburn on the mound
Valdez goes the distance, Alvarez clubs two huge home runs to lead Astros
Paul Blackburn has been the Athletics' most consistent starting pitcher this season, but even he couldn't prevent a 5-1 loss to the Houston Astros Monday at the Coliseum.
The AL West leaders, behind lefthanded starter Framber Valdez, shut down the A's offense one day after a season-high 14 hits against Texas.
It was Blackburn's first loss of the season after five wins and came before a Memorial Day crowd of 8,753.
He pitched respectably but gave up a season-high four earned runs. Valdez, in improving to 5-2, threw the first nine-inning complete game of his career. He allowed just two hits and five baserunners, walking three and striking out seven while throwing 114 pitches.
The A's had won eight times in Blackburn's previous nine starts.
Houston, 31-18, got two gargantuan home runs from Yordan Álvarez, his 13th and 14th, and one from José Altuve, his 10th. The A's fell to 20-31 and 10-20 in May, a month which has seen them drop to the bottom of the division standings.
“I thought Paul pitched better than his line,” A's manager Mark Kotsay said. “The ball Altuve hit, off the bat I thought it would be an out. It just kept carrying.”
While Blackburn was generally pretty good, Valdez was simply better, albeit against an inferior lineup to his own. The only other complete game for Valdez came when he was the losing pitcher in a six-inning effort against Detroit last June 26 in the first game of a doubleheader.
“That's a bulldog right there,” Kotsay said. “A really impressive day on his end. His breaking ball is really a weapon and he's got 95 (mph) on pitch 112 in the ninth inning. A
tough day for us offensively. Sometimes you have to tip your cap to the opposing pitcher.”
The two home runs by Álvarez totaled 913 feet in distance and with exit velocities of 113.9 and 110.1 miles per hour. The first came off Blackburn, the second off A.J. Puk.
Blackburn's day ended after 6 2/3 innings on a play in which a Chad Pinder throwing error at first resulted in a collision at first base between Altuve and Christian Bethancourt.
“Today I felt good -probably the best I've felt all year,” Blackburn said. “I was getting soft contact. The one bad pitch was the 3-1 to Alvarez that was elevated. I felt like I executed 90 percent of my game plan today. Sometimes it goes like that.”
After five hitless innings,
Kevin Smith doubled to lead off the sixth, pulling up slightly and leaving the game with an injury in favor of runner Seth Brown. The A's got on the scoreboard when Ramón Laureano beat the Houston shift and drove a ground single to right-center, scoring Brown.
The Astros extended their lead to 4-0 against Blackburn in the fifth inning. José Siri was hit by a pitch with one out, stole second and scored on a jam-shot single to left by Martín Maldonado.
Altuve was next, drawing the usual chorus of boos that have followed him since the Houston sign-stealing scandal of 2019. The boos were silenced momentarily when Altuve hit a two-run home run to right-center, a wall-scraper that barely cleared the fence
Blackburn had given up just one home run in his previous nine starts before Álvarez connected in a big way leading off the fourth inning.
The ball landed above the suites in right-center field, 469 feet away -tied for the third-longest home run in the majors this season behind a 496foot moonshot hit Monday at Coors Field by Marlins outfielder Jesús Sánchez and a 472-foot blast by the Angels' Mike Trout.
It was Álvarez' third career home run against Blackburn in nine at-bats.
Notes
• The nasty collision with Altuve and Bethancourt at first base ended with both players staying in the game.
• Smith, who earlier in the game made his first error of the season at third base, left the game after a sliding attempt at a foul ball near the A's dugout. Kotsay said no tests are necessary and the hope is Smith will be available Tuesday night.
• Parker Markel and Domingo Tapia made their A's debuts one day after being called up from Triple-A Las Vegas. Markel got a pair of outs and walked two in 2/3 of an inning. Tapia threw a scoreless ninth.
“Both of them got through their innings, so the first impression overall is good,” Kotsay said.
Tapia was not allowed to wear a glove that had a patch of white leather (a potential distraction to hitters) and was forced to wear a blue glove from his days with the Kansas City Royals organization.