Frankie Montas carried a shutout into the seventh inning while Ramon Laureano, Jed Lowrie, Sean Murphy and Seth Brown delivered two-out, run-scoring hits as the visiting Oakland Athletics defeated the Houston Astros 7-3 on Saturday to claim the rubber match of this three-game series.
Montas (1-1) pitched the Athletics to their first series victory this season, limiting the Astros to one run on six hits and one walk with five strikeouts over six innings while improving to 5-3 in 10 career appearances against Houston. He allowed the lone run on his 100th pitch, a 3-2 slider that Astros right fielder Kyle Tucker drilled into the right-field seats leading off the seventh.
With Oakland leading 2-0 in the top of the fifth, Laureano blasted his first home run this season 415 feet to left off Astros starter Jose Urquidy (0-1), driving home Mark Canha and doubling the lead. Canha reached on a two-out single just prior to Laureano jumping on a first-pitch slider.
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Lowrie added a two-run, two-out single off Astros reliever Brandon Bielak for a 6-0 lead in the seventh before Brown cranked a solo homer against Ryne Stanek, the third Houston pitcher of the game, with two outs in the eighth.
Brown’s first home run of the season helped stymie the momentum the Astros had generated in the seventh when Jose Altuve and Michael Brantley followed the Tucker home run with run-scoring extra-base hits. Altuve drove in Myles Straw with his second double of the afternoon and in the process notched his 463rd multi-hit game, a total that moved him past Cesar Cedeno and into fourth place in club history.
Brantley plated Altuve with a triple to right-center that cut the Oakland lead in half at 6-3.
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Canha, Laureano and Lowrie recorded multi-hit games atop the Athletics batting order and finished a combined 7-for-14 with five runs scored, four RBIs plus a walk.
Urquidy became the second Astros starter to log six innings, allowing four runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts.
–Field Level Media