Kurts walks it off again, lose 6-4 and split series

After combining for 24 runs in the previous two games, the Astros still couldn’t get the series win

Coming off a 20-hit, 11-run night on Wednesday, the Houston Astros came out looking for a series win against the Athletic’s, but they fell short in the same exact fashion as the first game of the series, this time in extra innings.

That was only made possible when, down to their final four outs and losing 4-1, Astros catcher Victor Caratini turned the game around with one swing of the bat.

After a two-out walk and single put two on, the A’s decided to turn to their closer Mason Miller, who had not allowed a run to the Astros in his career. That didn’t matter to Caritini though, who took the first pitch he saw from Miller, a 98 MPH fastball in the bottom-middle of the zone, over the right center fence to tie the game 4-4.

The Athletics were the first team on the board though with two second-inning solo-shot, both flying over 400 feet and putting them up 2-0 early.

After those two, the A’s couldn’t get anyone else across till the bottom half of the sixth when ball up the middle was flipped to second for the first out of the inning, but an errant throw from Altuve ended up near the dugout and allowed the third run to score, coming on the Astros second error of the night.

This was added onto in the next inning when the A’s Rookie of the Year favorite Jacob Wilson hit his ninth homer of the year, a solo-shot, to put his team up 4-1.

The Astros bats had no answer for A’s starter Jacob Lopez, who, after allowing a base hit and a hit by pitch in the first inning, shut the Astros down, striking out nine over his six innings of work.

The Astros only run that came off him came when a Jake Meyers single and Mauricio Dubón double put runners on second and third for Jeremy Peña, who gave the Astros their first run of the night on an RBI-groundout

That run was to support Astros starter Colton Gordon, who was coming off back-to-back starts allowing two or less runs, and he did that up again tonight.

Regardless of the runs, he was not able to minimize base runners tonight, leaving the game after the first two batters of the sixth inning reached, the second being on an error by Gordon himself.

Colton Gordon’s final line:

5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 2, ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 91-56 TP-S

After Gordon left, the Astros bullpen, in a rare instance this year, was not great.

After Caleb Ort was the first out of the pen and allowed one of Gordon’s runs to score, Steven Okert came in the next inning and allowed yet another run.

The first inning with no runs scored from the bullpen came in the bottom of the eighth from Bryan Abreu, who allowed runners on the corners with no-outs, before getting two strikeouts and a groundout to leave them stranded.

After Caratini’s home run tied the game, the Astros turned to their closer Josh Hader to keep the game tied in the bottom of the ninth, and, after a 1-2-3 inning, he sent the game into extra innings knotted up at four.

They made a bold move and handed the ball back to Hader in the bottom of the 10th to try and get a second inning out of him for just the third time this year, but that did not turn out how they wanted.

After advancing the runner on second with a wild pitch and starting the inning with a strikeout, the A’s Nick Kurts stepped up and, after walking off game one of the series, did it again, hitting a tank to center field to walk off the game with a 6-4 win.

This is just the first time in the month of June that the Astros have allowed more than four runs. This also marks the Astros first loss in extra-innings on the year.

Only two Astros finished the day with more than one hit, and it was the two hitters on the team batting above .300; Peña and Meyers.

Meyers, who came into this year with a career average around .230, continues to impress in the outfield, both defensively and offensively. Along with his .300+ average, Meyers also ranks within the top-5 in defensive Outs Above Average (OOA) with seven.

Mauricio Dubón continued to hit the ball well while back in his home stadium and was about a foot away from hitting a home run in three straight games with a double to left center.

The Astros will try and bounce back from this starting tomorrow when they head South to kick off a series against the Los Angeles Angels. The first game of that series will start at 8:38 CST.