HOUSTON—Rookie Joey Loperfido hit his first major-league home run, and Cristian Javier pitched six scoreless innings Thursday night to help the Houston Astros beat the Oakland Athletics 8–1 and complete a four-game series sweep.
The victory extended Houston’s winning streak to a season-high five games. The Astros have won seven of their past eight.
“The biggest thing is just everybody is executing better,” Houston third baseman Alex Bregman said. “We’re playing better as a team now.”
Yainer Diaz hit a three-run double and Loperfido added his two-run shot off Joey Estes (1–1) in a six-run third inning that gave the Astros a big early lead.
“Those are the big hits that we need to open the game up,” Houston Manager Joe Espada said. “That’s the kind of offense that we know we’re capable of.”
Javier (3–1) bounced back from a poor performance in his prior outing to allow just two hits while striking out eight. The right-hander gave up seven runs in just 1 1/3 innings in his previous start after returning from an 18-game absence with 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.
Severe thunderstorms roared through downtown Houston on Thursday night, causing rain to get through a section of Minute Maid Park’s retractable roof and pour into the bullpen in right-center field as Javier warmed 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 game.
Estes yielded 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,” A’s Manager Mark Kotsay said.
The Oakland starter’s struggles continued a horrid stretch for the A’s where they’ve given up 86 runs in their past 12 games.
There were two outs in the third inning when Jon Singleton walked to load the bases. Diaz then lined a double into center field to clear the bases and give the Astros a 3–0 advantage.
Jake Meyers followed with a double to left field to score Diaz and make it 4–0. Loperfido’s shot to the seats in right field came next to extend it to 6–0.
Trainer’s Room
Oakland left-hander Ken Waldichuk had reconstructive surgery on his troublesome pitching elbow and will be sidelined all season.Up Next
Athletics: Oakland hadn’t announced its starter for the first of three games at Kansas City on Friday night.Astros: Right-hander Hunter Brown (0–4, 7.79 earned-run average) is set to start for Houston against righty Freddy Peralta (3–1, 3.63) in Friday’s opener of a three-game series against visiting Milwaukee.
