Astros fall 8-1 to Athletics
Keuchel roughed up for six earned runs after retiring the first 13 batters in a row
Oakland gets six earned runs off Dallas Keuchel, who carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning.
The two-seam fastball ran away just outside of the strike zone and exited Marcus Semien’s bat at 80 mph. Dallas Keuchel savors such movement and paltry contact. Inducing it to an opponent’s leadoff hitter with two outs in his fifth inning of a tie game is ideal.
Keuchel exited the mound and turned his head. An empty patch of infield dirt greeted him. Against the pull-hitting, righthanded hitting Semien, the Astros employed a severe shift. Jose Altuve shuffled to his left and vacated the spot where this groundball traveled. If he’s there, the third out is surely recorded.
Instead a single rolled into George Springer’s glove. Keuchel hit his knees leapt into the air incredulously at the realization of a stolen third out and the silliness of the pitch he threw.
“That was a dumb pitch on my end,” Keuchel said. “He hasn’t got a hit, hadn’t really seen the ball well and I gave him a solid pitch away, but when you have that big of a gap, you put the bat on the ball and take your chances hitting the ball over there and that’s what he did
For all of the benefits shifting can provide, these are the occasional pitfalls — an unexpected baserunner, an extended inning or another opportunity to make a mistake. Manager A.J. Hinch said afterward “it happens from time to time. But when he pulls a ball in the hole and we’re standing there, we like that.”
10 at-bats against Keuchel, Chad Pinder had zero hits. His 11th followed Semien’s seeing-eye single and began with a mistake. Keuchel served an elevated slider at the left fielder’s letters.
Pinder obliterated it, depositing his second home run of the season just inside the left field foul pole. Keuchel hung his head in disgust upon contact. The A’s took a 3-1 lead on the second of three home runs they struck off Keuchel in Friday’s 8-1 loss.
Not since Sept. 16, 2015, against the Rangers had Keuchel allowed three homers. Mark Canha tagged him for a two-run shot in his seventh and final inning.
That game in Arlington against the Rangers was a farce. The Astros lost 14-3. Keuchel ceded 11 hits and nine earned runs while recording only 14 outs.
Friday did not begin this cataclysmic. By the end, it became so. Reliever Joe Smith yielded a tworun triple to Jed Lowrie in the eighth inning to ensure it was.
Keuchel carried a perfect game into the fifth inning, harnessing precise command and befuddling hitters. All of his three strikeouts in that span were looking.
“That’s probably going to go down as one of the more frustrating outings of my career,” Keuchel said. “Just how I felt early on.”
Such a start is becoming almost commonplace within the Astros’ rotation. Justin Verlander retired the first 14 hitters he faced during Wednesday’s win and now, two days later, Keuchel retired his first 13. Third baseman Matt Chapman arrived as the 14th.
Against him, Keuchel offered a 1-1 two-seam fastball. It bit down in the strike zone. Chapman still golfed it into the Crawford Boxes, leaving his bat at 112 mph to sully a perfect game and forecast what lay ahead.
“I thought early on it was as good as he’s been at locating his pitches and finishing his pitches,” Hinch said. “And then it flipped a little bit at the end, both in luck and a couple balls that really burned him.”
The seven-run loss was the Astros’ most lopsided of the young season, though they did avoid historical humiliation against A’s starter Sean Manaea
Eighty years ago, CinIn cinnati Reds pitcher Johnny Vander Meer threw a no-hitter in two consecutive starts, an almost impractical feat Manaea sought to replicate Friday. No other major leaguer had done so.
Manaea no-hit the Red Sox, owners of the most wins in major league baseball, last Saturday. Friday his opponent was the defending World Series champions, which had the league’s secondmost victories
Manaea retired the first nine Astros he faced, though he yielded ample hard contact. Four of the first five balls put in play against him had an exit velocity of 98 mph or faster. All found defenders.
“We had the right approach and (we) executed our plan, but we were not successful,” said Carlos Correa. “We hit a lot of balls hard, but right at the gloves. There’s nothing you can do about that.”
Leading off the fourth inning, George Springer slid headfirst to beat out a ground ball that was thrown errantly. An error was charged to Semien, momentarily preserving Manaea’s bid.
Correa concluded it two batters later, scalding an opposite-field single to score Springer and give the Astros a lead they refused to keep. The Astros mustered just four singles against Manaea, who now owns the franchise record with 141⁄3 consecutive hitless innings.