By Morris Phillips

Finally, the Oakland-Houston mojo took a night off.

The Astros broke open a tie game with a four-run eighth inning and went on to defeat the first place A’s 7-6 at Minute Maid Park. The Astros had lost six in a row at home, and eight straight—dating back to last season—to the A’s.

On top of that, the Astros hadn’t scored a run off the Oakland bullpen this season—more than five games and 14 2/3 innings—until they broke through against Sean Doolittle, who was charged with all four runs. Doolittle faced four batters in the eighth without recording an out and took the loss.

“Every now and then, that’s going to happen to everybody. But you don’t expect that to happen to him,” manager Bob Melvin said of Doolittle’s struggles.

The loss allowed the Texas Rangers to catch the A’s atop the AL West with both teams now sporting 15-9 records. The Rangers rallied with three runs late to top the Mariners, 6-3 in Seattle.

With only a half-inning to slice Houston’s commanding lead, the A’s made it interesting as Brandon Moss came up with a three-run homer and Nick Punto followed with a base hit to put the tying run on base with no outs. But Coco Crisp grounded into a fielder’s choice and John Jaso and Jed Lowrie struck out against Raul Valdes who was summoned to record the final two outs.

The Astros improved to 6-25 all-time against the A’s which ramps up the anticipation for Sunday’s final of a series that has seen two A’s plunked and Astros’ pitcher Paul Clemens and manager Bo Porter ejected. Will the A’s continue their mastery of Houston after a one-night break and/or will the tension likely exacerbated by the lopsided nature of the series pop up with a plunking or confrontation?

The A’s Tommy Milone faces the Astros’ Collin McHugh in the finale at 11:10am PST.