A’s fall to cheating Astros in extras

Oakland’s pitching dominated but not enough.

A dramatic match ended with a third straight loss for the Oakland Athletics, as the Houston Astros just barely outpitched them in a 10-inning 2-1 game.

The drama wasn’t all driven by gameplay as the umpires discovered some nefarious activity from the Astros side. No, the trash cans aren’t back, but game officials did find a foreign substance Astros starter Ronel Blanco’s glove. Before he could throw a pitch in the 4th inning, umpires convened on the mound and decided to eject Blanco, who was on a roll against the A’s lineup.

Of course, no one is surprised. Blanco, who’s unexpectedly been the Astros’ best starter this season and stands as one of Mason Miller’s main obstacles to the AL Rookie of the Year trophy, will likely face a suspension and a hit to the reputation he’s been building this year. Now, people will question whether his success so far was legitimate, and rightfully so.

JP Sears, on the other hand, was pitched nearly just as well as Blanco without any sticky stuff. Despite allowing a solo shot to Alex Bregman in the 1st inning, Sears was able to get through five without any more blemishes. The arguably league-best 1-2-3 punch of Austin Adams, Lucas Erceg, and Mason Miller was even better, throwing 4 no-hit innings against Houston with a whopping 9 strikeouts. Five of those came from Miller, who only needed 29 pitches to get through double-inning duty tonight.

Going into the 8th inning with a longstanding 0-1 deficit, the A’s finally struck back with a leadoff ground-rule double from Abraham Toro, who’s been red-hot at the plate in May, hitting .359/.414/.528 in 12 games.

After being moved to third on a groundball, Oakland’s other May firebreather Brent Rooker broke his 0-3 start to the game with a first-pitch single off Ryan Pressly to drive Toro in and tie the game at 1-1.

With elite closers Miller and Josh Hader trading punches as the game went into extra innings, the A’s struck out on a couple of golden opportunities to take control of the game. After Max Schuemann walked and Toro hit a long flyball that moved both the ghost runner and Schuemann into scoring position with 1 out, pinch hitter Esteury Ruiz battled Hader for 8 pitches but ended up striking out swinging. Then Rooker, with a chance to be the hero again, grounded out to second and put the ball back in Houston’s court.

Miller probably could’ve kept going, but the A’s opted not to stretch him too far and went to Michael Kelly for the bottom of the 10th. Unfortunately, the 31-year-old righty lasted only one out as his second batter, Victor Caratini, knocked a sweeper right back up the middle, walking it off in a 2-1 victory for the Astros. Did they have an unfair advantage? I choose to believe so because it makes me feel better, but typically you need to score more than 1 run in 10 innings to win a ballgame.

The A’s are now on a legitimate slide, dropping 8 of their last 10. They need to get a win tomorrow to stop this slide from becoming a spiral, especially if they want to hold off the fourth-place Astros, who are now just 1 game behind them in the AL West. It won’t be a favorable matchup with Aaron Brooks — aka the man the A’s for some reason can’t quit — getting a hopefully-spot start against ace Framber Valdez.