Rookie Joey Loperfido smashed his first home run in the major leagues, and Cristian Javier pitched six innings without allowing any runs on Thursday night. This helped the Houston Astros secure an 8-1 victory over the Oakland Athletics, completing a four-game sweep.
The win extended Houston’s winning streak to a season-high five games, with the team winning seven of their last eight matches. “The biggest thing is just everybody is executing better,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “We’re playing better as a team now.”
Yainer Diaz hit a three-run double, and Loperfido contributed with his two-run homer off Joey Estes (1-1) during a six-run third inning, which gave the Astros an early lead.
“Those are the big hits that we need to open the game up,” manager Joe Espada said. “That’s the kind of offense that we know that we’re capable of.”
Javier (3-1) rebounded from a poor performance in his previous outing, allowing only two hits while striking out eight. In his last start, he had given up seven runs in just 1 1/3 innings after returning from an 18-game absence due to neck discomfort.
“The biggest adjustment for me is just trying to stay as focused as possible and attack the strike zone as quickly as I can and try to throw my pitches inside the strike zone,” Javier said in Spanish through a translator.
Intense thunderstorms swept through downtown Houston on Thursday night, causing rain to leak through a part of the retractable roof at Minute Maid Park and flow into the bullpen in right-center field while Javier was warming up.
“It didn’t really affect me, but yeah there was a lot of water in there, which is something I hadn’t seen before,” he said. “So I was a little bit confused there.”
Abraham Toro doubled and Zack Gelof hit an RBI single in the seventh for Oakland, which lost its season-high fifth straight. Estes gave up eight hits, eight runs, and four walks — all career highs — in his second start this season and fourth of his career.
“If you don’t locate you can’t get good hitters out and that was an example tonight,” manager Mark Kotsay said. His struggles continued a horrid stretch for the A’s where they’ve given up 86 runs combined in their last 12 games.
