By Matthew Harrington

The Houston Astros scorched the Oakland Athletics to a 7-3 series-opening win at Minute Maid Park Monday night, launching four home runs to beat the American League West leaders for the fourth time in 11 games against the Green and Gold this season. Houston scored all seven of its runs on long balls, including a three-run shot by Chris Carter and a two-run blast by Jason Castro. Oakland starter Jesse Chavez (8-7, 3.44 ERA) yielded six of the seven runs on three round trippers, pitching 5 1/3 innings while being saddled with the loss.

The big damage came in the bottom of the sixth with both teams knotted at three runs apiece. Chavez started the inning before back-to-back one-out homers to Castro (a two-run shot) and Marc Krauss chased the A’s starter. Dan Otero then entered the game in relief, getting Jon Singleton to fly out for the second out, but saw Matt Dominguez take him deep on the first pitch he saw for a 7-3 lead.

Oakland took the lead early off Astros starter Brett Oberholtzer, scoring a run in the second on a Derek Norris RBI single then taking on another in the third Stephen Vogt’s fifth homer of the season. Former Athletic Chris Carter put the Astros ahead with a three run shot in the bottom of the inning for a 3-2 lead before Yoenis Cespedes brought the A’s even on a sacrifice fly of Oberholtzer in the fifth. Oberholtzer (3-7, 4.30) went 6 2/3 innings, allowing eight A’s hits but only three runs to pick up the win.

The A’s were without Craig Gentry and Coco Crisp. Crisp received an MRI Monday on his neck and is still listed as day-to-day, but Gentry was placed on the disabled list with a broken right hand earlier in the afternoon. The A’s called up outfielder Billy Burns, who went 0-for-1 in his major league debut after pinch hitting for Josh Reddick in the ninth, from Double-A Midland to fill the speedster role. The switch hitter batted .303 in spring training with 10 steals pilfered 51 bases in 91 games with the RockHounds this season while being caught only five times. Jed Lowrie batted in the leadoff spot with both fleet of foot outfielders missing Monday and went 2-for-4 with a run.

With the Los Angeles Angels inactive Monday, the A’s AL West lead drops to 1 ½ games Monday despite the day marking the 100^th consecutive day Oakland (65-40) has been in first place this season. The A’s send Jeff Samardzija to the mound Tuesday looking to top the Astros’ Scott Feldman and keep Oakland more than a fraction of a game up.