Matt Olson gets the big hit the A’s have been searching for in first win over Astros
The A’s hanging over the dugout railings could feel the game’s energy finally start to shift in their favor. Their hitters were making strong contact, but the contact all found Astros gloves.
“We were talking in the dugout about it. It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming,” manager Bob Melvin said.
Matt Olson was at the plate in the eighth inning, the game tied 1-1, with two runners on. Opportunities like this had come for the A’s in their last eight games, but no hitter had yet been able to break through.
The big hit had eluded them, so consider Houston Astros reliever Blake Taylor’s two-strike hanging slider to the A’s most potent slugger a gift. Olson pummeled it 414 feet into Minute Maid Park’s second deck for a three-run home run that ignited Oakland’s 6-2 win, their second win of the season and first over their American League West division rival in six tries.
“It’s been a tough go for us,” Olson said. “We’ve had chances and not made the most of them, so any time you can get over something like that and get some big knocks and have some big at-bats throughout the whole game. Elvis (Andrus) hit a couple balls hard at people, got the line drive hit. Things are turning up for us, finally, after such a tough start.”
A desperate search for that big hit had kept this A’s offense on ice until Olson’s first home run of the season; pressure started to weigh on the team and batters started to press more as guys tried a little harder to be that guy to break it open. It led to the A’s league-worst .170 average with three total home runs in a 1-7 start.
“We’ve been waiting for that type of thing, but when you talk about pitching, defense, across the board, that’s the type of game we play,” Melvin said. “It started with (Sean) Manaea. It goes hand-in-hand, the pitching and the hitting. Manaea was fantastic but obviously Oly’s blow was huge for us.”
Olson’s home run might’ve broke it open, but Manaea’s outing set the tone. The Astros rocked the 29-year-old last week at the Coliseum for five runs in 4 2/3 innings. Drawing the Astros stick again for his second start, Manaea took the mound with an edge. He rolled through the Astros lineup through six innings.
“He wanted to pitch a good game against these guys,” Melvin said. “It’s a lineup that’s been handing it to us, and he went out with an edge tonight. Had to pitch out of some traffic at times. Had to get him up close to 100 pitches. In a close game like that, every pitch means something. He was just determined tonight.”
Trouble struck only when a one-out walk Yuli Gurriel come back to bite him in the fourth inning. Carlos Correa landed a jam shot single and Kyle Tucker scored Gurriel from third on a ground out.
Other than that, Manaea looked strong. He kept the game well within reach to give the offense just that little bit more time to find a groove. He struck out powerful left-handed hitter Yordan Alvarez three times and held them to that run alone on six hits. But it became clear he was in the zone when he struck out Michael Brantley looking at a fastball at the knees and came back down 3-0 to get lefty-killer Alex Bregman to ground out with runners on the corners and one out in the third inning.
That Brantley strikeout foreshadowed a strong night for Manaea command-wise. He painted the corners brilliantly with a little help from Aramis Garcia behind the plate. Manaea leaned into the contact that might come with it.
“Those guys kicked my butt last time, that’s never fun,” Manaea said. “Facing guys in back-to-back games, I felt like I had to go out there and prove something. It was nice to go out there and pitch a good game.”
Jed Lowrie and Mark Canha also fueled the breakthrough. Lowrie has put together some of the team’s most competitive at-bats in eight games this year. He gave the A’s their third lead of the entire season early with a solo blast off McCullers’ hanging curveball in the fourth inning. To some extent, Lowrie’s been the only cog running in the lineup, coming into the game with a .250 average in 24 at bats.
The A’s missed their first “big hit” opportunity right after. Matt Chapman walked and shortstop Carlos Correa’s error on Stephen Piscotty’s potential double play ball seemed a rare crack to break open. McCullers lost the strike zone in a four-pitch walk to Seth Brown, even, but Elvis Andrus’ ground ball was hit hard enough, but deep enough to prevent the force out at home. Aramis Garcia struck out swinging at a slider to end the inning.
Lowrie even kickstarted the rally that led to Olson’s big hit. After Astros manager Dusty Baker plucked cruising right-handed reliever Bryan Abreu — who’d allowed a Mark Canha hit — for Taylor. Lowrie, a switch-hitter, moved to the right side of the plate and cracked his second hit of the game for a single to advance Canha to second.
Olson wasn’t phased by the familiar left-handed reliever, either. Olson launched a two-strike slider into the second deck of Minute Maid Park with a 105 mph exit velocity. According to data and analytics service Inside Edge, Olson’s .595 slugging percentage off sliders is the fifth best in MLB.
Yusmeiro Petit pitched around a leadoff single in the seventh inning and Lou Trivino handed Alvarez his fourth strikeout and Correa his first in a scoreless eighth inning. Jake Diekman allowed a run in the ninth inning — had the A’s not taken that lead, Trivino would have been saved for the ninth and Diekman in earlier, Melvin said.
And Diekman had a larger lead to protect. Canha caught the hitting bug in the ninth inning, blasting at two-run home run — his second home run of the season — to extend the A’s lead late. When it rains, it pours. And that’s a storm in this drought.