Cole Irvin looked better than his first start of the season. He kept the Oakland Athletics in the game for the most part before he sputtered in the bottom of the sixth inning.
He gave up a one out solo home run to Yordan Alvarez and then walked Carlos Correa. J.B. Wendelken came on in relief of Irvin and didn’t do well. He got Yuli Gurriel for the second out before giving up a double to Kyle Tucker down the left field line to put runners on second and third. Interestingly enough Bob Melvin elected to pitch to Myles Straw instead of putting him on. That decision came back to haunt the A’s.
As straw doubled in two. Jason Castro then ended the inning with a swinging but that barely went anywhere. A 2-0 game quickly went to 5-0.
For the A’s offense there weren’t many opportunities to score runs. There was one opportunity in the third when Tony Kemp walked with two outs, Mark Canha singled to put runners on first and second for Matt Olson.
Christian Javier got him to ground out to end the threat. Olson got another opportunity with two runners on in the fifth. He got a pitch to hit and give the A’s an actual lead over the Houston Astros, yet with the way the season has gone he fouled the pitch off. Two pitches later after he worked the count full and fouled off a touch pitch, he got caught looking to end the inning.
Houston tacked on another run on a solo home run by Jose Altuve off Deolis Guerra.
Oakland got an opportunity for a rally in the eighth as Kemp and Canha walked. Olson took the count to 2-1 before reliever Enoli Paredes left with an injury. Joe Smith relieved him and like the fifth Olson got a pitch to hit and ended up popping out weakly. Ramon Laureano ended up on first with a fielder’s choice and Kemp got to third. The hero from the A’s first win Matt Chapman ended the inning with a fly out to right field.
Fortunately the A’s did not get shutout. As Aramis Garcia singled to open the ninth inning, Sean Murphy struck out. Stephen Piscotty doubled to left field barely scoring Garcia who got sent by third base coach Mark Kotsay. Elvis Andrus got robbed of extra bases by Straw for the second out of the inning. Jed Lowrie pinch hit for Kemp and fell behind 0-2 before singling to center scoring Piscotty. Canah struck out to end the ball game.
The A’s are now 1-7 on the season. Have now lost six straight games to the Astros including postseason, and the only good news is that it’s the first time in those games that the pitching hasn’t given up eight or more runs.