The Oakland A’s are in trouble. With a 5-2 loss to the Houston Astros on Tuesday afternoon at Dodger Stadium, they trail the best-of-five American League Division Series two games to none.
To survive and advance, the AL West champions must win three in a row against an opponent that has yet to lose in the postseason. Only eight Major League Baseball teams have overcome a 2-0 deficit to win a best-of-five playoff series, most recently the New York Yankees in 2017.
The A’s blew 2-0 leads against the Yankees in 2001 and Red Sox in 2003. When Astros manager Dusty Baker was the Reds’ skipper in 2012, his team lost a 2-0 lead to the Giants.
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The task is arduous, but not impossible.
“We just have to win tomorrow,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “We put all our efforts into tomorrow. And just think about tomorrow. Anything further than that is a distraction. All we have to do is win a game. Hopefully, that’s tomorrow.”
Baby steps, that’s what the A’s hope to take. With their backs firmly against the wall, their goal to overtake Houston will need a narrower approach. Winning games requires winning individual battles, and the A’s have fallen short in nearly every facet in the first two games.
“We knew coming in this would be a dogfight,” third baseman Chad Pinder said. “They have great talent, they’re not going to just roll over. We’ve got to find a way to pull ourselves out of this. One big hit, one big inning. We have to find it somehow within us to do that.”
The big inning has eluded Oakland’s hitters. The same team that notched 16 comeback wins — priding themselves on an ability to take cracks at opposing bullpens and erase late deficits — has been missing in action in Los Angeles.
Down three runs, the A’s had only one batter reach base in the final five innings — Marcus Semien’s leadoff single in the ninth inning that went for naught with Pinder’s game-ending double play.
Though their roster is built with the right-handers capable of challenging any left-handed pitcher, the A’s couldn’t consistently drive the ball against Houston starter Framber Valdez.
Davis got a hold of one of his few hanging curveballs, sending it over the fence in right field for his third home run of the postseason and second of the series. He hit two home runs over 30 games in the regular season.
Pinder, hitting third, hit another signature tape-measure home run for the A’s second run.
But mistakes were too few and far between. Valdez had his biting curveball working from the first inning. Along with his sinker and a changeup, the A’s rolled over most of his offerings.
“Early on our bats were better,” Melvin said. “Typically good starters get better as the game went along. You could see he was getting confidence as the game went along. He ended up going seven innings. I didn’t think at the beginning he would be able to do that, but he did.”
Any hope at an extended look at the Astros’ bullpen, perhaps a boost for the offense, died as Valdez stretched 103 pitches over seven innings. He retired the last 10 batters he faced and allowed just the two runs.
The A’s pitching staff couldn’t keep pace.
Sean Manaea got the start on 12 days of rest, hoping for redemption following a disappointing performance in a wild-card loss to the Tampa Bay Rays last season.
On another day of Home Run Derby in the Southern California sun, the Astros found one more big swing than the A’s.
Two came against Manaea, who managed to keep most of his pitches down — but not down enough for this powerful, motivated Houston lineup.
George Springer answered the A’s 1-0 lead quickly in the top of the third. Sizzling hot all postseason with a .666 (6-for-9) average, he pulled a hanging curveball into the left-field seats, the two-run blast putting the Astros on top 2-1.
Manaea lost two ticks on his fastball velocity, and the heart of the Astros lineup, hunting a floating changeup, hit him hard in the fourth inning. In a slew of contact registering three figures in exit velocity (105, 109, 107, 100), the Astros put traffic on the basepaths, but fortunately for Oakland came away with just one run.
Manaea came back to face the bottom of Houston’s order in the fifth, and Martín Maldonado chased him out of the game with a solo home run that made it 4-2.
This wasn’t the redemption start Manaea envisioned.
“It’s my job to go out there and pitch and I didn’t do that today,” he said. “It sucks, but I know this team will figure this thing out and turn it around.”
In came Yusmeiro Petit, and Springer hit the reliever’s first pitch over the left-field wall for his second home run of the afternoon and a 5-2 Houston lead. With a confident Valdez on the mound, Houston could just coast from there.
“It came down to a few long balls,” Melvin said.
Both sides have shown the ability to hit the ball out of the park — with a little help from the hot afternoon air at Dodger Stadium. The separator is the Astros have had runners on base when they hit theirs.
Timelier hits are finding the more experienced postseason team. Their young starter outlasted Oakland’s more seasoned one. Everything that worked in the A’s favor as they dominated Houston in the regular season just isn’t happening. In these two games, a division rival that has owned the A’s and blocked their postseason path the past few seasons had all that magic in spades.
The A’s broke through last week, winning two elimination games against the Chicago White Sox to reach the ALDS.
Now, Oakland will have to stave off elimination three times in three days to keep this season alive.
