OAKLAND, Calif. — The Oakland A’s offense has spent much of this season waiting for the big hit to crack open a stagnant offense. Pressure to be that guy — the batter to break open the offense — built a collective tension that had to break at some point.
Matt Olson relieved the pressure with one swing in the eighth inning on Friday, launching a three-run home run off Blake Taylor to secure the A’s 6-2 win over the Houston Astros — their first win over their American League West division foes in six tries so far this year and second win of the season.
Mark Canha caught the hitting bug in the ninth inning, blasting at two-run home run — his second home run of the season — to extend the A’s lead late. It wasn’t that easy early on.
Particularly in the context of a very cold A’s offense, Jed Lowrie has put together some of the team’s most competitive at-bats in eight games this year. He gave the A’s their third lead of the entire season with a solo blast off Lance McCullers’ hanging curveball in the fourth inning.
The A’s even had an opportunity to add on, too. Matt Chapman walked and shortstop Carlos Correa’s error on Stephen Piscotty’s potential double play ball seemed a rare crack to break open. McCullers lost the strike zone in a four-pitch walk to Seth Brown, even, but Elvis Andrus’ ground ball wasn’t deep enough to score Chapman and Aramis Garcia struck out swinging at a slider.
The Astros wouldn’t let that A’s lead sit for long, though. Sean Manaea let a one-out walk to Yuli Gurriel come back to bite him when Correa landed a jam shot single and Kyle Tucker scored Gurriel from third on a ground out. Other than that, Manaea looked strong. He kept the game well within reach for a stagnant offense, silencing the Astros hitters through six innings. He struck out powerful left-handed hitter Yordan Alvarez three times and held them to that run alone on four hits.
But Lowrie would kick-start the A’s next attempt at a rally. In the eighth inning after, Astros manager Dusty Baker plucked cruising right-handed reliever Bryan Abreu — who’d allowed a Canha hit — for left-handed pitcher Taylor. Lowrie, a switch-hitter, moved to the right side of the plate and cracked his second hit of the game for a single to advance Canha to second.
Olson wasn’t phased by the familiar left-handed reliever, either. Olson launched a two-strike slider into the second deck of Minute Maid Park with a 105 mph exit velocity. According to data and analytics service Inside Edge, Olson’s .595 slugging percentage off sliders is the fifth best in MLB.
Yusmeiro Petit pitched around a leadoff single in the seventh inning and Lou Trivino handed Alvarez his fourth strikeout and Correa his first in a scoreless eighth inning.
