It’s been one of those days for the Oakland A’s as the A’s Mark Canha does a swipe slide but is tagged out by the Houston Astros catcher Martin Maldonado during the second inning of the first game on Sat Aug 29th’s doubleheader at Minute Maid Field in Houston (AP News photo)

By Barbara Mason

The Oakland A’s wasted no time getting on the board in Game 2 of their doubleheader against the Houston Astros. Facing Astro pitcher Zack Greinke Ramon Laureano hit a homer (382 feet) to take the early lead 1-0.

The Astros would now duel with the A’s pitcher Frankie Montas who has yet to reach the level he had been at previously, before his suspension. It has been a very big series for the Astros Kyle Tucker driving in three runs in the first inning and just like that the Astros led 3-1. It would be another big first inning for the Houston Astros and a disappointing start for Montas.

It didn’t get much better for Montas in the second inning when George Springer hit a home run scoring Martin Maldonado and extending their lead 5-1. It has been a struggle for Montas since the beginning of the season and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of the old Montas.

In the third inning we got to see Tommy La Stella’s first at bat since coming to Oakland from the Angels. He would pop fly out in his first showing. Zach Greinke was proving to be a very difficult pitcher to hit making it tough on the A’s offense.

Montas had a three up three down third inning and it was on to the fourth inning. Matt Chapman would hit his tenth home run in the fourth, another solo home run. Hits were few and far between for Oakland, trailing 5-2.

In the bottom of the fourth the A’s would make a pitching change sending J.B. Wendelken to the mound. The Astros would leave two runners on base when George Springer struck out. The A’s had three innings left in the games to try and comeback. Oakland had five hits so far in this game and Houston had seven.

In the fifth inning the A’s would chip away at the deficit. Machin would score when LaStella grounded out moving Laureano to third. Chapman would pop out leaving Laureano on third and the A’s still had a two run deficit and two innings left to do something about it. TJ McFarland would dismiss the Astros in the bottom of the fifth inning.

A double play would end the top of the sixth inning and the A’s were running out of innings. The seventh, eighth and ninth inning comebacks that the A’s are famous for have to happen in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings of these shortened games.

The offense has been very disappointing for awhile now and the team has become very inconsistent of late. Given the hitting prowess of the Astros the Athletics had their hands full and they needed to match the offense of Houston and they just were not.

In the bottom of the sixth Yuli Gurriel would sacrifice fly and Martin Maldonado would score giving the Astros a 6-3 lead. This really took away the possibility of an Oakland comeback.

Oakland couldn’t get a thing going in the seventh, a theme that ran throughout this game. It was very choppy with a few bright spots but this team just was not hitting. The Astros outhit the A’s 11 to 6.

Tomorrow: Oakland will play one more game against Houston. They need this game; they do not want to let the Astros get within one and half games especially since they will be seeing them at home in a little over a week for a four game series. They have to step up their offense and pitching has to improve especially with only 26 games left in the season.