Astros Get Grand Slammed. Lose Second Straight to A’s 5-3.

Astros bats fall short again as Astros lose another series to last-place Oakland.

True outcomes.

Walks, strikeouts, home runs. A game with too many true outcomes isn’t much fun. Especially when your team is the victim of true outcomes.

Against his first 13 batters, Astros starter Luis Garcia had nine true outcomes: five K’s and three BB’s.

Booooring.

And one HR. Unfortunately, the home run came after an infield single and two walks.

Yeah, true outcomes. They weren’t much fun for Garcia and the Astros when Chad Pinder gave the A’s four runs in one big batch to give the A’s a 4-0 lead in the third inning.

It was all the A’s needed to win.

But the Astros did not let that big blow completely stop their attack. Kyle Tucker struck back in the fourth inning with a solo dinger to right field, his 19th of the campaign.

And they added two more in the fifth, all the damage after two outs, and with a little help (again) from the A’s defense.

Jeremy Pena hit a broken-bat single off starter Frankie Montas and scored on a Yordan Alvarez double off the wall in right-center field. Alvarez scored when A’s third basemen Vimael Machin fielded Alex Bregman’s grounder but missed the throw to first, enabling Alvarez to score.

But the Astros couldn’t mount another offensive threat ending the game with just seven hits, the same as game one.

The A’s added another run in the eighth inning against Bryan Abreu after Tony Kemp doubled home Stephen Piscotty.

But the insurance run was unnecessary, as Lou Trivino shut down the Astros in the ninth 1- 2- 3.

Garcia ended his outing after 5.2 innings, allowing four runs, four walks, and four hits, while striking out seven. Command was a problem for Garcia tonight for most of the game.

The Astros try to salvage a win today starting 2:38 CT in Oakland behind Cristian Javier. He will be opposed by Cole Irvin.

Box score and videos here.