Coming up short
Graveman works 8 shutout innings before pen bends but doesn’t break
A ninth-inning rally fizzles in loss to A’s.
Can’t blame them for trying.
Nineteen hours after Luis Valbuena sent Minute Maid Park into a frenzy, ending an eight-run ninth inning where he scored the final three on a game-winning home run, the Astros were at it again Saturday.
Valbuena singled home Jose Altuve with two outs in the ninth, cutting an Oakland lead to one run, and gave way to George Springer, who stood on first base, a mere shot in the gap away from bringing the Astros all the way back after they had no answer for Kendall Graveman through eight innings.
“It’s too bad we can’t pull all of these out at the end,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch, whose team lost 3-2 after Ryan Dull struck out Carlos Gomez following Valbuena’s RBI single.
“Or it’s too bad that we didn’t do enough at the beginning of the game to make it more interesting, but competing is never a problem for this team.”
Maybe it’s because of so muchpractice — the Astros (47-41) head toward the AllStar break with six onerun victories since June 18. They’re 16-15 in one-run games this season.
Drama in 9th inning
Graveman tied his career best by making it through eight innings. He went back out for the ninth, but was done after three pitches and back-to-back singles, the second by Marwin Gonzalez allowing Jake Marisnick to get to third.
Athletics manager Bob Melvin went to Ryan Dull to protect a 3-0 lead after closer Ryan Madson gave up Valbuena’s game-winner Friday.
Altuve beat out a wouldbe double play, scoring Marisnick, before Dull got Carlos Correa to pop out after an eight-pitch at-bat. He worked away to Valbuena, who has feasted on inside pitching.
“I tried to get a good pitch to hit a home run, but he threw me everything away,” said Valbuena, who has homered in three of his last five games.
Valbuena hit a 2-2 fastball to left, scoring Altuve before Dull struck out Gomez.
The rally came after the shortest start of the year for Lance McCullers and the longest in more than a year for Graveman (5-6).
Graveman, a righthander took a no-hitter into the fifth and needed just 80 pitches to get through seven. The Astros had three hits by then, but none advanced past second base.
Reaching the eighth stopped Graveman’s streak of 28 consecutive starts of seven or fewer innings dating to June 18, 2015.
“Hedid a good job of continuing to attack,” Hinch said. “Once he got the lead, he could do that even more, and we just never adjusted to his fastball until it was too late.” Not his best stuff
McCullers threw 92 pitches in four innings for his shortest outing since his first of the season, which came in mid-May after he joined the team from the disabled list.
Thirty-five of those pitches came in a disastrous third inning, where the Athletics sent eight to the plate and McCullers walked three straight, the third forcing home Ste- phen Vogt, who started the rally with a two-out, RBI single through the Astros’ shift — the ball rolled where Correa plays at normal depth as the shortstop, but the infield was swung around for the lefthandedhitting catcher.
That scored Josh Reddick, who singled and moved into scoring position on a McCullers balk.
“After that Vogt single, I lost it a little bit,” said McCullers, who struck out six but gave up seven hits. “I couldn’t find it.”
Vogt put the Athletics up in the second, homering the other way to the first row of the Crawford Boxes. It was the first of three hits for the catcher, who finished a triple shy of the cycle.
A walk and back-to- back singles followed Vogt’s homer, but McCullers (4-3) escaped, striking out No. 9 hitter Tyler Ladendorf and Coco Crisp to leave the bases full.
“He was battling himself,” Hinch said. “It just seemed like he was missing on all fronts. He finished OK with the fourth inning, but his pitch count had run up, he didn’t look like he was landing the pitches the way he needed to, and it made for a shorter outing for him.”