Over the last couple of days, we’ve covered the Astros’ offensive outburst. They demolished the Mariners 21-1 on Sunday before opening up a four-game series against the Athletics yesterday with a 15-0 win.
The tables have turned. The Astros and A’s have completed four innings in Houston as of this writing and the A’s are winning 17-2. Astros starter Wade Miley could only get one out in the first inning before getting yanked, serving up seven runs on seven hits and a walk. In fairness, all seven hits were singles and only a couple of them were hard-hit. But Cy Sneed and Joe Biagini couldn’t close the gates behind him, allowing a combined 10 more runs.
The A’s have hit five homers thus far, all of the two-run variety. Khris Davis, Sean Murphy, and Marcus Semien have each gone deep once while Matt Olson has two homers to his name. Everyone in the starting lineup has at least two hits and has scored at least one run. Jurickson Profar is the only one without a run batted in.
The Astros’ offense has been provided by George Springer, who has two solo homers, including one to lead off the bottom of the first inning, both off of Tanner Roark.
Update: It’s now 19-2 in the fifth inning. The last time the Astros gave up 19 runs in a game was April 20, 2013 against the Indians. They’ve only allowed 20-plus once, when the Cubs plated 22 runs on June 3, 1987. The A’s last scored 19 runs, well, two weeks ago, when they beat the Royals 19-4. They scored 21 runs on September 20 last year against the Astros.