Astros insider: A rough road trip ends
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Oakland Athletics and Houston Astros benches clear after Athletics’ Ramon Laureano charged the dugout after being hit by a pitch thrown by Astro’s Humberto Castellanos in the seventh inning of a baseball game Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
OAKLAND, Calif. — Before a brawl became their most trending topic, the Astros’ Sunday afternoon started with such promise, faint hope that their many defects may be mending. José Altuve worked ahead in the count and took advantage of a mistake, rifling a middle-middle sinker from A’s starter Jesús Luzardo into center field.
Altuve ambled into first base. He entered the game with only seven hits in his last 48 at-bats. Perhaps the single was a sign that Altuve was coming around. The Astros dugout gave their temporary leadoff hitter a hearty hand. Life existed in the dugout. Josh Reddick took it all away.
“We’re really not to where we need to be in terms of our lineup going as a synchronized unit. When we’re really going well, we do a good job of passing the torch on,” Reddick said. “Any time we seem to get something going, we end it with a double play.”
Reddick followed suit on Sunday. He bounced into a 6-4-3 double play, removing any momentary momentum Altuve created. Alex Bregman bounced out, too, ending the first inning without any fanfare.
Eight more innings followed a similar script. The Astros’ abysmal road trip ended with another whimper. The 7-2 loss was rendered a footnote by the benches-clearing donnybrook instigated by Ramon Laureano and Alex Cintron.
But the fracas did not change one fact: the Astros are reeling.
Their season is on the precipice of a disaster, undone by injuries to the pitching staff and an offense that refuses to perform in the clutch. Forty-five games remain and they trail two teams in the American League West. They are 5 ½ games out of first place.
“It’s a long ways from spiraling out of control,” manager Dusty Baker said. “We’re not playing good baseball and we ran up against a team that was hot — they’re probably the hottest team in baseball. We ran across some real good pitching the last three days. We got to go home and regroup and start all over again.”
They won only three times on this nine-game road trip and return home three games under .500. Baker ascribed some of the blame to the difficult road protocols that required the team to isolate in their luxury hotels.
“There’s no excuses why we’ve gotten beat,” Baker said. “But it is different than what we’re used to. We went to some great cities to visit and play ball in, some great hotels to stay in. Like in Newport, (Calif.) that was an awesome hotel. I’m from the Bay Area and you couldn’t go be with your family.”
“It was a little different to spend an off day at the hotel and not being permitted to play golf or even leave, but that’s something we have to get used to and that’s how it is if we’re going to remain healthy for the rest of the season.”
After a well-played, 13-inning marathon on Friday, the A’s totally tamed Houston on Saturday and Sunday. The team’s offense is absent, aside from Yuli Gurriel and Carlos Correa. Leadoff hitter George Springer was sidelined for the entire series and the top of the order could not compensate.
The top three hitters in Houston’s batting order combined to go 8-for-39 in the three-game sweep. Altuve was 2-for-14. He went 8-for-43 on the road trip and owns a .609 OPS through 15 games.
“His balance is off a little bit,” Baker said. “He’s either early or late and not seeing the ball like Altuve usually sees the ball. This guy has great vision. He’s pulling off the ball a little bit and fouling pitches he usually puts in play, which puts him in a two-strike situation and it’s too hard to hit all the time with two strikes. We have to get him focused and relaxed.”
Bregman went 2-for-13 against the A’s. The team scored five runs and struck 18 hits in 31 innings. Slumps happen, but in the course of a 60-game season, they are more magnified.
“It doesn’t cause panic, but it makes us realize what we need to do, and the window for that is closing fast,” Reddick said. “With the short season, we really need to figure out and get down to it and really get our butts out there and do a better job overall. We’re just not getting the job done and that’s unacceptable on all our parts.”
Some of the team’s rookie pitchers are overperforming and getting no reward. Enoli Paredes came of age on Friday and Framber Valdez followed on Saturday. Andre Scrubb secured massive outs on Thursday against the DBacks as the set-up man, only to see Ryan Pressly blow the save in the ninth.
Then times arrive like Sunday, when a rookie scuffles. Cristian Javier endured a brutal third inning, buried by home runs from Matt Chapman and Matt Olson. He gave his team a five-run deficit. The lineup had no hope to overcome it.
Reddick struck a leadoff single in the fourth. Bregman hit into a double play to erase it. Luzardo walked two straight hitters in the sixth, prompting manager Bob Melvin to remove him from the game. Yusmeiro Petit entered.
Gurriel gave Petit a great plate appearance. He’s perhaps the only Astro who can claim consistently good at-bats of late. Petit raced ahead 1-2. Gurriel spoiled three two-strike pitches and worked an eight-pitch walk.
Up strolled Correa, owner of a major league-leading .458 on-base percentage and a 1.026 OPS entering Sunday. He mentioned earlier this week how “selectively aggressive” he’s been at the plate.
Petit threw three pitches. The final two did not land in the strike zone – four-seam fastballs that tailed away from the righthanded hitting Correa. He swung at them anyway, punching out on three pitches and extinguishing another threat.
“If you think things are spiraling out of control, shoot, you might as well just not even play,” Baker said. “It’s a long way from spiraling out of control. We just got to win a couple ballgames.”
“We just have to go home, regroup. It wasn’t a very good road trip.”