Houston Astros baserunner Jose Altuve (27) reaches down to touch home plate behind Oakland A’s catcher Aramis Garcia (37) on a Michael Brantley double in the top of the fourth inning (AP News photo)

Houston. 9. 14. 0

Oakland. 5. 8. 1

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–Ever since they traded Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to Washington for Blake Treinen, Sheldon Neuse and Jesús Luzardo July of 2017, the A’s have had high expectations for the Peruvian born, Venezuelan and state-side educated left hander Luzardo.

While he hasn’t yet fulfilled the team’s hopes, it hasn’t been for lack of talent or motivation but because of nagging problems with the shoulder of his pitching arm. Indeed, he underwent Tommy John surgery at 18, while still in high school. That was in 2016. He began last season in the bullpen and ended up starting in game 3 of the division series. In between he threw his first 100 pitch game. His record for the season was 3-2, 4.12.

Today, he left the game trailing 5-2 after five innings, in which he sent 92 balls to the plate, 56 of which were strikes. All five runs were earned, and Luzardo gave up eight hits, two of which were round trippers. He walked one and struck out eight Astros. Burch Smith relieved him to open the sixth. The A’s ended up losing their second straight game to the Astros 9-5 at the Oakland Coliseum.

Luzardo’s opposite number for the visitors was their promising right hander, Cristián Javier, who had finished third in last year´s rookie of the year balloting.

Houston drew first blood in the third, capitalizing on José Altuve’s short stature and the long ball prowess of Michael Brantey and Alex Bregman. The Astros’ second sacker opened the frame by taking a four pitch walk. Brantley followed with a double off the right-center field wall.

He looked out at second, and the A’s shortstop Elvis Andrus thought he was. Second base umpire Sean Barber did not. Alex Bregman then blasted a three and two 96 mph four seam fast ball over both the glove of a leaping Mark Canha and the left field wall, Luzardo settled down to retire the next three batters in order.

But the Astros added a couple of runs to their 3-0 lead in the very next inning. Yuli Gurriel led off with a homer to left. Two outs later, Altuve beat out a grounder to Chapman. He scored on Brantley’s resounding double to center.

Oakland finally got on the board in their half of the fourth. Canha led off with a single to third and scored on Laureano’s powerful triple. Olson was hit by a pitch, and, after Chapman fanned, Laureano came home on Mitch Moreland’s sacrifice fly to medium right field.

You can chalk that run up to Laureano’speed. After Lowrie lined a single to center, Astro manager Dusty Baker decided that Javier had pitched enough for the day and replaced him on the mound with Bryan Abreu, who closed out the inning by getting Andrus to hit into a force out at second.

Houston’s young starter left with no decision, having yielded two runs, both earned, on three hits over three and two-thirds innings. He gave up three hits and got four strike outs while hitting one batter. 46 of his 73 offerings were strikes.

With Smith on the mound for Oakland in the top of the seventh, Houston managed to tack on another to their lead when Altuve walked and advanced to third on single by Bregman. The speedy Altuve then managed to score on Kyle Tucker’s sacrifice pop up to Andrus in shallow right field.

The Athletics came roaring back in the bottom half of that inning, Chad Pinder, pinch hitting for Ka’ai Tom with Jed Lowrie, who had walked, on first, blasted a Brooks Raley 90 mph cut fast ball into the left center field seats to cut the Astros’ advantage to 6-4. They narrowed their deficit to a single tally on Olson’s two base hit, a productive ground out to second by Chapman, and a pinch hit ground out to short by a pinch hitting Stephen Piscotty off of Blake Taylor.

The deficit increased, however, in the Astros’ ninth. Jake Diekman made an inauspcious season debut by giving up a single to right by the pesky Altuve, who stopped at third on Brantley’s subsequent double to right. Diekman then loaded the bases with an intentional pass to Bregman.

Left handed hitter Kyle Tucker, with the shift on and the infield drawn in, slapped a hard bounder to Andrus, playing to the right of second base. The ball bounced off the shortstop’s glove and into center field for a two run single and an 8-4 Houston lead.

Althogh Diekman struck out the next two batters, the wheels continued to fall off Oakland’s wagon, JB Windelkin walked Gurriel, moving Bregman and Tucker up a base each. Myles Straw hit what looked like an inning ending grounder to Olson. But the Gold Glove winning first baseman bobbled the ball, and Straw beat his throw to Windelken at first. That was the final score, Houston winning 9-5.

Ryan Pressly closed out the game for the ‘stros with a scoreless ninth. Abreu got the win for his two and a third innings of one hit ball.

The A’s used five pitchers, Luzardo, Smith, Romo, Diekman, and Wendelken, in a losing cause.

The teams will go at it again tomorrow at 1:07. Lance McCullers, Jr. will take the mound for Houston. Col Irvin will make his debut for Oakland.

The A’s are now two games down with, let us hope, 160 to go.