Colon Leads A’s Past The Astros

Bartolo Colon has been around a long time but that didn’t stop him from dominating the Astros again today. The 40-year old looked very sharp against the Astros, throwing seven strong innings, allowing nine hits, zero walks, and striking out nine. Colon’s fastball was in the low-to-mid 90’s most of the day, and the Astros struggled to string along enough hits to get on the scoreboard against Colon.

Jason Castro was one of the few Astros that looked to be dialed in. Castro, DH’ing today, had a 4-4 day, raising his average to .283 for the season. Castro has ten hits his last 12 at-bats. Carlos Pena was the only other batter to get on base twice today.

The Astros didn’t look good at all on defense today. Both Jose Altuve and Carlos Corporan each had an error, and Altuve’s error was the start of a five run inning by the A’s. Trevor Crowe was very busy today, and looked pretty good roaming around the spacious center field. He had an opportunity to gun Nate Freiman at the plate, but his throw sailed too far away from the plate. Freiman was responsible for the A’s final run with a solo-shot to deep center field in the 6th.

Dallas Keuchel got the start, and besides the lack of help from the defense, he didn’t look too sharp. In six innings, Keuchel allowed nine hits, six runs (four earned), one walk, and struck out two. Jose Cisnero came in for “mop up work” and pitched three good innings of one hit-one walk ball, striking out two.

The Athletics are now 9-0 against the Astros, and 19-23 against the rest of the league.

The Astros will have a special 1:10 PM CT Memorial Day start tomorrow against the Colorado Rockies. Bud Norris, and the camouflage jerseys/hats of the Astros, will face off against Jhoulys Chacin.