Houston can’t get anything going against Severino; lose 5-2 to A’s

Athletics’ hitters tallied double the hits of Astros hitters in this one

With a new lineup that sees Taylor Trammell leading off Jon Singleton as the DH and Zack Short at short, this makes Houston Astros manager Joe Espada’s 97th different lineup this year, good for the third most in baseball. But, they have still been able to get it done on the field.

That was not the case today though in their opener against the Athletics, losing the first game of the series 5-2 in their first home game since the All-Star break.

The Athletics got the scoring started in this one. This is now the 15th game in a row for the Astros that the opposing team scored first, dating back to July 4th.

A’s center fielder Lawrence Butler singled before stealing second and advancing on a throwing error, allowing a sac-fly to give the A’s the first run of the game in the second. They followed that up right away by adding two more in the fourth after loading the bases with three-straight singles and one-out to go up 3-0 quickly.

They kept it going off Alexander, starting in the fifth after a walk and a double to start the fifth put runners on second and third and allowed another sac-fly to score a run. His day wrapped up after a one-out, solo-shot from Luis Urías put the A’s up 5-0.

This is just the first home run he has allowed in the majors so far this year and just his fourth all year, with the other three coming with the Sugar Land Space Cowboys.

Jason Alexander’s final line:

6 IP, 11 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 96-65 TP-S

Héctor Neris was the first arm out of the pen for the Astros and he was great, giving the Astros two innings of shutout work. This marks his longest outing and the first time he has gone two innings since April 2023.

Steven Okert was the only other arm out of the pen after Naris and he gave the Astros another scoreless inning, stranding an A’s runner on third.

Unfortunately for Astros hitters tonight, they faced A’s starter Luis Severino, who has a 3+ ERA difference between home and away, and it showed tonight. When Houston faced off against Severino on June 18th, he was only able to go five innings after allowing two runs on nine hits in Sacramento. We saw someone very different tonight in Daikin Park.

Prior to the Astros first runs, they had just three base runners as a team through the first six innings of the game off Severino.

The Astros finally got on the board in the seventh starting with a leadoff HBP to Jose Altuve and double by Victor Caratini, who now has a 12-game hit-streak, allowing Christian Walker and Cam Smith to both hit RBI sac-flies.

Houston wasn’t able to do any damage after that one inning, standing three runners over the next two innings to hand the Astros the 5-2 loss.

Luckily for the Astros, this was just the first of a four-game series against the A’s, with the next coming tomorrow at 7:10 PM.