Another one gets away
Losing streak hits five games as Oakland breaks out the bats.
OAKLAND, Calif. — For a team in dire need of it, relief can come in countless forms.
Lessening the load for the Astros’ burdened bullpen belonged to the bats. The Astros’ pitching staff is in shambles but so often can take solace in the lineup supporting it. The offense is among the sport’s best, a loaded group not at all performing to the many plaudits and praise it constantly receives.
Silenced for 13 uninspiring innings on Friday, the Astros were presented ample chances on Saturday to relieve some of the load enveloping Rogelio Armenteros, a 25-year-old rookie thrust into a perilous predicament during his second major league start.
Before Armenteros tossed a pitch, his offense took two first-inning plate appearances with the bases loaded. They did not score. Three more attempts to add cushion in the third ended with familiar futility.
Six Astros baserunners stood stranded after three innings. In six at-bats, their only hit with a runner in scoring position was Alex Bregman’s run-scoring double during the third. Yordan Alvarez added a sacrifice fly, giving Armenteros all the support his lineup could apparently muster.
Predictably, two runs did not suffice. Armenteros emerged for the third inning and allowed seven straight Oakland batters to reach, starting a shellacking.
The lineup — Alvarez aside — deadened thereafter. The Astros staggered to a fifth straight loss. The 8-4 setback shrunk their American League West lead to 6½ games over the Athletics, who will try for a four-game sweep on Sunday.
“Those key at-bats, especially when you look back at the game, those key at-bats are huge,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “You’re not always going to do what you want. But we had some opportunities.”
Alvarez socked two solo home runs. The eight men around him produced one other extra-base hit, refusing to offer assistance to a staff still suffering the effects of injury and inclement weather.
The fifth loss of this streak can trace back to the first, when Gerrit Cole exited the right-field bullpen in Chicago five minutes before the second game of Tuesday’s unforeseen doubleheader. The pitchers scrambled to cover nine innings and still have not recovered.
Scratching Cole still wreaked havoc this weekend. A truncated outing on Wednesday from Wade Miley made matters worse. Four extra innings on Friday felt almost insurmountable for the Astros, who exhausted a bullpen that could ill afford it.
Saturday saw the team in dire straits, the sort of which not normally felt by a club charging toward a division crown. The Astros handed the baseball to Armenteros, recalled from Class AAA Round Rock prior to the game.
Behind him was, at most, a four-man bullpen. Three of the Astros seven relievers were certainly unavailable. Joe Smith was thought to be a fourth, but he appeared nonetheless for the fourth time in five days.
“It’s really important for us not to push these guys past the point of where they get themselves hurt or they’re not going to be effective,” Hinch said before the game.
Smith, Will Harris, Hector Rondon and Ryan Pressly all pitched three times in the previous four games. Hinch turned to all four during Friday night’s 3-2 loss n 13 innings, some of which he’d hoped to avoid, all in hopes to steal a win. The Astros’ anemic offense did not allow it, striking out nine times in the final seven innings.
“It’s just the schedule. It is what it is. We’ve been through this before,” Hinch said. “This is nothing that we haven’t conquered before. We have to play better. More winning baseball. This has been a brutal trip results-wise, but we’ll get back at it tomorrow.”
Expectations for Armenteros were slim. At the very least, the Astros required length to spare more relievers.
He finished only four innings and yielded five runs. The A’s ambushed him in the third, sending nine men to face him. The first seven reached, striking six singles and drawing a walk. Mark Canha running into the first out at second base after his two-run knock was Armenteros’ saving grace.
“I felt I threw good pitches there, but unfortunately they didn’t come through the way I wanted them to,” Armenteros said through an interpreter. “The hits found holes. I tried to execute and execute as best I could.”
Hinch yanked his starter after four frames. Fear of a rookie facing the middle of Oakland’s order for a third time dictated the move. Alvarez’s fifth-inning homer pulled the Astros within two at 5-3.
Chris Devenski was summoned to keep it there. The reliever had tossed 16 pitches on Friday and 39 on Tuesday. Within the Astros’ current situation, the righthander was remarkably ready and fresh.
“We’ve just been really unable to put a shutdown inning together after we score,” Hinch said. “For whatever reason that is — some of it is a good team across the way, some of it is just execution — but if you’re playing from behind, you need a shutdown inning just to stay close.
“When you’re playing from ahead, you want to keep the momentum. We haven’t been able to do that.”
Devenski prolonged the misery. A leadoff walk to Robbie Grossman preceded a first-pitch plunking of Matt Chapman. Matt Olson and Canha cranked consecutive singles to score both baserunners. The search for relief continued.