Oakland Athletics: Swept by the Houston Astros
By Mark Sigmon
The Oakland Athletics proved a baseball theorem this weekend against the Houston Astros. It’s not who you play, it’s when you play them.
Unfortunately for fans of the Oakland Athletics, the timing wasn’t good in this series against the Astros.
The Astros were a playoff team last year, but they struggled earlier this year. Unfortunately, Houston is hot right now. The team has won nine out of ten games. Since an early-season slump, the Astros have been playing a lot better. If they can sustain this level of play, It looks like the Astros will be in contention for the AL West.
The A’s did not play poorly in this series. The team just got behind the eight-ball early. Jesse Hahn had one of the worst nights of his young career on Friday night. He could not get out of the first inning. Hahn ended up surrendering seven earned runs. In Hahn’s defense, Chris Coghlan in right could have stopped the bleeding a lot sooner.
With two outs and three runs in, Tony Kemp hit a deep drive to right center. Coghlan got a glove on it, but he could not quite catch the ball cleanly. The ball popped out of his mitt and rolled along the fence while two more runs scored. Kemp ended up on third. It would have been a very good play if Coghlan had made the catch.
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Every Oakland Athletics fan must have been thinking, “Josh Reddick would have had it.” Nevertheless, seven runs on six hits and two walks in the bottom of the first inning set the A’s up to have a very bad weekend.
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The Oakland Athletics, as a team, got clobbered in the first game, but the bullpen paid the price. Relievers ended up throwing 7.1 innings. (6.1 if you take out Tyler Ladendorf‘s pitching the bottom of the eighth.) Andrew Triggs threw four innings and was rewarded with a trip back to the minors when the A’s had to call up a fresh arm in Daniel Coulombe.
It was a desperate move by the front office, and it seemed to pay dividends in the second game of the series. Coulombe entered the game in relief of Kendall Graveman, who gave up five earned runs in 4.1 innings. Coulombe and the rest of the A’s bullpen pitched 6.2 innings of shutout ball.
When Jed Lowrie tied the game in the top of the ninth with a two-out home run, it looked as though the A’s would have a good chance to win the game. Ryan Madson, unfortunately, gave up the winning run in the bottom of the twelfth, so the bullpen’s effort went to waste.
The one bright spot of the sweep was Sonny’s Gray’s outing. He came off the disabled list to throw five very strong innings. He probably could have cranked out a couple more innings, but manager Bob Melvin did not want to take a chance and extend him. He turned to the already overtaxed bullpen.
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Gray left the game with a 2-1 lead, but Coulombe gave up the tying run in the bottom of the sixth, and Ryan Dull allowed the Astros to score the go-ahead run in the bottom of the seventh. It was painful to watch Marc Rzepczynski give up two more runs on three walks and his own error. He struggled mightily in the bottom of the eighth, but there was no one else to put in. The bullpen was pretty much gassed by that point.
It was a frustrating weekend for the Oakland Athletics. They came to Houston riding a five-game winning streak. It seemed as though they were on the verge of a run like the Astros are on. But then came the news that Rich Hill has tweaked his groin muscle and will miss his turn in the rotation.
Then Jesse Hahn just could not get his pitches down in the strike zone. Then the bullpen was overworked. Then the Astros got a few cheap lucky hits. It’s baseball.
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In the words of Jerry Reed “When you’re hot, you’re hot, and when you’re not, you’re not.” It’s a long season. The A’s will have a few hot steaks of their own.