Astros Are Shut Out

After winning an 11 inning nail biter last night, the Astros lost this afternoon’s game in the first inning.

Erik Bedard (Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports)

Coming into the series finale, Houston already had the series win in hand, but they were no match for rookie Sonny Gray in his second career start. After striking out five batters in his first start, Gray struck out nine Astros today in eight innings for his first career win.

Against Gray, the Astros only managed four hits and one walk while going three up and three down in three innings and only mustering one base runner in each of the other five innings.

Houston showed a little bit of life in the ninth inning against Dan Otero with two outs, but Matt Dominguez struck out looking to end the game. Marc Krauss doubled with two outs following a Carlos Corporan walk. The third baseman left four runners on base today as he saw his average fall to .226.

Robbie Grossman kept up his hot hitting with two singles, Corporan singled in addition to his walk, and Jonathan Villar had his fourth double of the season which was all the offense the Astros were able muster.

Erik Bedard could not get out of the fifth inning today as he gave up all five of Oakland’s runs in 4.2 innings throwing 97 pitches. Bedard consistently worked deep into the count and allowed seven hits and four walks while striking out four A’s.

Former Astros were responsible for all five of the runs as Jed Lowrie had a first inning RBI double to get the A’s on the board which was followed by a two run double by Nate Freiman. Freiman then added a two run home run in the third inning and finished the afternoon a triple short of the cycle.

In one bright spot for Houston, Lucas Harrell provided 3.1 innings of scoreless relief allowing only two hits and one walk.