After losing a tough, one-run, extra inning battle to the A’s Friday, the A’s outscored the Astros 10-3 in the next two games, taking down the listless Astros 7-2 today in Oakland.
This shaped up to be a pitcher’s duel between two hot rookie pitchers, but it turned out that only the A’s starter, Jesus Luzardo, was firing bullets. The Astros starter, Cristian Javier, who came into the game with a 1.62 ERA, only went three innings, surrendering five runs.
The home run bug hit the inexperienced rookie today. Regression’s a bitch. He found out that fastballs down the middle that get by AA hitters find the bleachers in the big leagues.