Chad Pinder, sac flies keep A’s alive in ALDS; Liam Hendriks works 3 innings for win

LOS ANGELES — Just as the A’s appeared poised for another major playoff flop, the team suddenly discovered how to put men on base before homers — and even how to score without a homer.

Chad Pinder kept Oakland’s postseason hopes alive with a game-tying three-run homer in the seventh inning, two sacrifice flies gave the A’s the lead and an insurance run in the eighth, and Oakland held off Houston 9-7 at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, preventing the Astros from sweeping the Division Series in three games.

“We’ve got nothing to lose here,” Pinder said. “We’re the ones fighting. They had a two-game lead on us.”

What sort of momentum shift did Pinder’s homer provide the A’s, who’d looked flat and listless in the later stages the previous two days? “That was more like an earthquake than a shift,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said.

Oakland Athletics’ Matt Olson, right, is congratulated by Mark Canha after hitting a solo home run against the Houston Astros during the fourth inning of Game 3 of a baseball American League Division Series in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press

Pinder credited center fielder Ramón Laureano — who was traded from Houston to Oakland before the 2018 season and who charged the Astros’ dugout in August after being provoked by bench coach Alex Cintrón — for getting the team going as the energy was dripping away.

“Right before that inning, Ramón got everyone fired up, saying, ‘This isn’t it,’” Pinder said, adding that the team had gone flat the two previous games after Houston regained the lead “and Ramón nipped that in the butt. It was awesome.

“You could kind of feel when we got in the dugout, the energy was down again, kind of that flat-line feeling, and Ramón was having absolutely no part of that. It was along the lines of ‘We’re not going to let this be our last game.’”

Closer Liam Hendriks turned in a high-wire act in relief, working three innings and somehow evading trouble in the eighth even though Houston put two men on to start the inning. Hendriks ended the eighth with a flourish, striking out pinch-hitter Josh Reddick, the former Oakland right fielder. Reddick broke his bat over his knee as Hendriks pumped his fist.

“I’m not coming out of that game,” Hendriks said. “You’d have to wrench that ball out of my hand.”

The A’s faced elimination twice last week in the wild-card round and beat the White Sox twice to advance, and they’re 5-5 in their past 10 elimination games dating to 2012. Right-hander Frankie Montas will start for Oakland on Thursday, but Houston won’t announce a starter until the morning.

Before Pinder’s first-pitch blast off Josh James, things looked grim for Oakland after the Astros scored five runs in the fifth to take a three-run lead, particularly given that all of the A’s runs to that point had come on solo shots. Marcus Semien led off the seventh with a single, Tommy La Stella also singled and Pinder clocked his second homer in two days to tie the game 7-7.

“Really just trying to get something up and hit a sac fly, get a run in and chip away at the lead,” said Pinder, who didn’t know the ball was out off the bat. “The ball has been carrying here. … It just kept going.”

The next inning, Robbie Grossman drew a leadoff walk from Brooks Raley, then Laureano doubled and Sean Murphy provided the A’s first sacrifice fly. Semien walked, and Raley hit La Stella just below his elbow. La Stella fell in a heap at the plate, holding his arm before exiting with a trainer. Nate Orf ran for La Stella, and, with the bases loaded, Pinder lifted another sacrifice fly to right.

“Not trying to pull the ball, just stay the other way. The way the ball’s carrying, you don’t have to get a ton of it,” Melvin said. “Just fighting tooth and nail to try to come back, I don’t know how many swings there were, but the sacrifice flies wound up being huge — little things, not just homers sometimes.”

Melvin said that La Stella has a bruised right elbow — he was struck right on the bone — and an X-ray showed no fracture. The team will reevaluate him Thursday.

Oakland’s first four runs came on solo homers by La Stella, Mark Canha, Matt Olson and Semien, but the team was hitless in its first four at-bats with men in scoring position, running the team’s numbers in that category to 3-for-24 in this postseason and 3-for-34 over the past three postseasons.

Jesús Luzardo started for the A’s and allowed four runs, including a solo homer by José Altuve in the first and a two-run shot by Aledmys Díaz that tied the game 4-4 in the Astros’ five-run fifth. Yusmeiro Petit, working for the third day in a row, appeared off, hitting George Springer — the first man Petit has hit all year — and giving up three runs in all.

Petit is unlikely to be available Thursday, but Hendriks said he would be after throwing 37 pitches.

“Shoot, we live another day, and that’s as far as you take it,” Melvin said of the one-day-at-a-time approach. “A hard-fought game again, these things don’t seem to come easy — but we’ve got another day.”

Susan Slusser covers the A’s for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: sslusser@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susanslusser