Seth Brown drove in four with a pair of extra-base hits while Cole Irvin recovered from a rocky first inning as the visiting Oakland Athletics snapped the Houston Astros’ six-game winning streak with an 8-5 victory on Saturday.
Brown was integral in helping Oakland (53-93) rally from an early three-run deficit, smacking a three-run home run with two outs in the fifth inning that lifted the Athletics to a 6-4 lead. He added a two-out double in the seventh that drove home Sean Murphy with an insurance run.
Murphy plated Tony Kemp with a single in the first and was the third consecutive batter to reach against Astros right-hander Jose Urquidy (13-7). Kemp tripled and scored leading off the third and, when Chad Pinder smacked his 12th home run leading off the fourth, it marked the third time that Oakland had a leadoff batter reach and score.
The Athletics did so again in the fifth. Urquidy seemed to right himself after surrendering a leadoff single to Nick Allen, retiring Kemp and Vimael Machin. But the final out of the fifth proved elusive, and when Brown followed a Murphy walk with his 23rd home run, a 432-foot blast to right-center, Oakland surged ahead.
Oakland saddled Urquidy with six runs on seven hits and two walks over six innings. He has allowed six earned runs in consecutive starts after doing so only once previously this season.
Irvin (9-11) survived a ragged first inning of his own, allowing six hits in the Astros’ four-run frame. Three of those base knocks cleared the fence, with Aledmys Diaz, Kyle Tucker and Trey Mancini all going deep for the Astros (95-51). Diaz pulled Houston even with his 12th homer while Tucker and Mancini went back-to-back with their 28th and 18th home runs, respectively.
Tucker drove in Alex Bregman, who singled in the first inning along with Chas McCormick and Christian Vazquez. But after needing 20 pitches to escape the opening frame, Irvin needed just 40 to retire the Astros in order over the subsequent five. He set down 17 consecutive batters before Vazquez stroked an opposite-field single with one out in the seventh and completed seven innings with just 73 pitches on his ledger. He did not walk a batter and struck out one.
Yordan Alvarez drilled his 37th home run, and fourth in two games, off Oakland left-hander A.J. Puk in the eighth.
–Field Level Media