*Photo from The Athletic*
Houston leads series 2-0
In game one, it was Carlos Correa. Game two was George Springer's day. Springer homered twice, Framber Valdez kept the bats silent, and the Houston Astros beat the Oakland Athletics 5-2 to take a commanding 2-0 series lead, putting Houston one win away from their 4th straight ALCS appearance.
Oakland got the scoring started in the second inning, when Khris Davis hit a solo homer to center field, making it 1-0 A's. In the 3rd, Springer hit a two run homer to put the Astros in front 2-1. In the 4th, Michael Brantley scored on a ground out to extend the lead to 3-1. In the bottom of the 4th, Chad Pinder hit a solo homer to cut the Houston lead to 3-2. In the 5th, Martin Maldonado and Springer each hit solo homers to make it 5-2 Houston, which the bullpen held.
Valdez got the win for Houston, throwing 7 strong innings. Valdez allowed two runs on 5 hits and one walk, striking out 4 hitters. Valdez said of his pitching that "We saw the hitters were trying to go the opposite way a lot early in the game, so we made that adjustment to try to force them to hit it where we wanted to and get a lot of rollovers by coming inside on the batters, we were able to make that adjustment and were able to win the game."
Maldonado isn't sitting on his laurels just yet, even with Houston only needing one more win. Maldonado said that "We have to go out there tomorrow and keep doing what we've been doing the last two games, put some runs on the board and try to limit the damage, they have guys that can take you deep from one to nine. As long as they keep hitting solo homers, it isn't going to hurt us."
Sean Manaea, looking for playoff redemption, instead got the loss for the A's. Manaea pitched 4 1/3 innings, allowing 4 runs on 5 hits and one walk, striking out two hitters. Manaea lamented his performance after the game, saying that "It’s my job to go out there and pitch, and I just didn’t do that today. It sucks, but I know this team is going to figure this thing out and turn it around."
A's manager Bob Melvin still think Manaea did good, saying that "I think it was just a few pitches, you go back over the course of the game and you can throw 80 or 90 pitches, and if three or four of them are really bad and they take advantage of them, it can skew how your stuff really was. Maybe the breaking ball to Springer might not have been his best pitch. I don’t think it was a strike, but I’m not sure. That’s what it came down to. A few long balls."
The series continues Wednesday, where the Astros look to sweep Oakland as Jose Urquidy gets the start, due to Zack Greinke being injured. Jesus Luzardo gets the start for the A's.
Comments
Post a Comment