Astros get revenge with comeback win in Oakland

The Astros turned the tables on the Oakland Athletics Sunday afternoon with a ninth inning comeback win. Houston beat A’s closer Ryan Cook, rallying for two runs without getting a hit. The A’s closer couldn’t find the strike zone, walking three of the four batters he faced before being relieved by Fernando Abad.

Abad didn’t fare much better. The former Astro gave up a game-tying sacrifice fly to Jake Marisnick and, after an intentional walk to Jose Altuve reloaded the bases, a walk to Dexter Fowler pushed across the go-ahead run. Then, in the bottom of the ninth, Tony Sipp and Josh Fields were able to do what Chad Qualls couldn’t do on Saturday — keep the Athletics off the scoreboard.

The win was the Astros 63rd of the season, officially ending their streak of 100-loss seasons at three. The Astros also closed out their season series against Oakland with eight wins and 11 losses. That’s also a big improvement over last year’s record of 4-15 against the A’s.

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Dallas Keuchel had another outstanding start. The Astros’ lefty was unhittable through the first three innings, getting three strikeouts and six ground against the first nine batters. Keuchel held the Athletics scoreless until the sixth inning when a Marwin Gonzalez error helped the A’s take a 1-0 lead.

The Astros came right back with a pair of runs in the seventh, chasing Oakland starter Jason Hammel from the game. But that lead didn’t last long. Jed Lowrie singled to lead off the bottom of the inning and Nate Freiman followed with a homer down the leftfield line. Keuchel got two outs in the inning before leaving in favor of Jose Veras.

Veras gave up a single to Josh Donaldson before striking out Adam Dunn to end the inning. Jose stayed in to pitch the eighth and was able to get out of trouble with a couple more strikeouts. Sipp and Fields teamed up to strike out the side in the ninth to give the Astros their sixth win in the last seven games.