Back to formula of power, pitching, defense

The A’s are starting to recognize themselves. For a week, they were mostly on the receiving end of blowouts. Two wins in Houston followed a formula that has garnered them past success.

“When we play well, those are the type of things we do,” manager Bob Melvin said. “We play good defense, we get good pitching, bullpen comes in and does a good job, and we hit some homers.”

Melvin said that Saturday morning, but he might have been forecasting the game to follow. Frankie Montas quieted Houston’s lineup until the seventh inning. Ramón Laureano and Seth Brown hit towering home runs. The bullpen finished a 73 win. Reeling a week into the season, the A’s ended a demanding first 10 days with consecutive victories.

The A’s faced a challenge, starting the season with 10 games against the Astros and Dodgers. They emerged 37 yet played cleaner games the past four days, resulting in three wins. Houston outscored them 4111 in their first five meetings. Oakland’s bats stirred the past two days, totaling 13 runs on 18 hits. Starters Sean Manaea and Montas combined to allow two runs in 12 innings.

“The vibe is changing for sure,” Montas said. “Guys started hitting, starting pitchers are starting to do better. So the vibe is changing. We’re a team that we look out for each other. And when we do that we’re going to win ballgames. We’re just going to go out there and keep grinding.”

Montas set a tone early. His first 24 pitches were fastballs or sinkers. He filled the zone with 72 strikes out of 100 pitches and did not allow a run until Kyle Tucker hit his last offering for a home run leading off the seventh. The righthander averaged 96 mph on his fourseam fastball and sinker. The Astros squared up few, averaging an 85.2 mph exit velocity against him.

Montas did not finish three innings in his first start as the Dodgers scored seven runs on him. He said later that hitters seemed to be hunting his offspeed pitches. He threw 70% fastballs or sinkers Saturday. Out of his 30 sliders and splitters, Astros hitters swung at 16 and missed six.

“I feel like throwing that many fastballs in the beginning, that helped me a lot,” Montas said. “That opened (things) for my slider and my splitter. … Establishing my fastball, throwing it for strikes, that will make the other pitches good.”

Oakland built a 60 lead, with five of those runs scoring with two outs. Four singles against Jose Urquidy led to the first two runs in the fourth inning. Sean Murphy’s twoout RBI single was his first hit this season. Mark Canha had a twoout single in the fifth and scored when Laureano blasted an Urquidy slider 415 feet to left field. Jed Lowrie poked a basesloaded twoout single in the seventh, scoring two more.

After Houston halved its deficit in the seventh, Brown crushed a fastball from Ryne Stanek into the second deck for another twoout homer. It was the first majorleague home run for Brown, who hit 37 at TripleA in 2019. Batting .167 with men in scoring position after eight games, the A’s are 6for11 in those situations the past two.

“We’re a clutch team, and we know that,” Laureano said. “We don’t shy away from it. It doesn’t matter what the score is, we just want to never take an atbat off, and we have a pretty good professional lineup.”

Deeper outings from their starters were welcome. Oakland’s bullpen carried a heavy workload and sustained injuries in the first week. A fourrun lead allowed Melvin to use J.B. Wendelken in the ninth Saturday after Jake Diekman entered in the seventh and recorded four outs. An offday Sunday will be “huge” for the bullpen, Melvin said. He used the same word to describe the series win.

“Not only did we lose that (first) series (against the Astros), every game it seemed like we got blown out,” Melvin said. “We were never really in a game. And that’s a tough way to start a season. … It was important for us to gain some confidence again against them especially coming in here, losing the first game again kind of in the same fashion and being able to respond for two wins to take the series. That was big for us.”