The A's took four-of-five against the Houston Astros with a 3-1 win Thursday afternoon. The win moved the A's 6.5 games ahead of the Astros for first place in the American League West with 18 games remaining in the regular season.
Sean Manaea followed up his strongest start of the season against the mighty San Diego Padres with an even more dominant one against the Astros.
Manaea was perfect through his first five innings before Josh Reddick interrupted with a double down the first base line to lead off the sixth. Aledmys Diaz followed with another single, and the Astros scored their only run off Manaea on a Martin Maldonado double play ball.
Helped by consistently brief innings, Manaea departed after a scoreless seventh having thrown just 61 pitches with two hits allowed and four strikeouts. No walks. Manaea didn't have to throw more than 12 pitches in any of those seven innings.
An fastball velocity that ticked up to 95 mph and an improved changeup were keys to Manaea's success in his five-inning, one-run start against the Padres last weekend. Thursday, his velocity maxed out at 93 mph and averaged at 90 mph, but he was getting plenty of fruitless swings off his changeup.
The A's stalled on offense, too, not getting their first hit until Mark Canha's single to lead off the fifth inning off Astros right-handed starter Jose Urquidy.
Matt Olson flipped the game in the A's favor with one swing in the sixth. Ramon Laureano drew a walk, and Olson mashed a moonshot through the hazy Coliseum air into the right field seats. He hit it with a 45 degree launch angle. According to ESPN, only four A's home runs tracked by Statcast since 2015 have had a higher launch angle. It is, of course, Olson's highest launch angle on a home run in his career.
Chad Pinder's RBI single in the seventh inning scored Mark Canha, who'd walked and stolen second base, for the A's insurance run.
