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When you wake up and find out the #Astros won an extra-inning thriller over the A’s pic.twitter.com/eA38tC4TBF
— Houston Astros (@astros) August 7, 2015
At the start of this week, everything looked pretty rosy for the Houston Astros (61-49). They were winning, had a nice lead atop the AL West, and had made some trade deadline moves that were considered to be excellent by the majority of baseball pundits. Everything got turned on its head, though, when they ended up on the receiving end of a sweep at the hands of the Texas Rangers. All of a sudden, that lead atop the division did not seem quite so secure, which is not how you want to feel with 6 games still to play on a tough road trip. The Astros did bounce back, though, although the A’s made them work pretty hard for an extra innings win in the first game of this series. Mike Fiers (5-9, 4.17 ERA) was acquired in a trade with the Brewers, and did not get his Astros career of to a memorable start, as he was hit for 6 earned runs by the Rangers.
This season has long been dead and buried for the Oakland A’s (48-62) but you have to give them some credit for continuing to fight. They have been playing .500 ball over their last 6 games, and could have a much better record in that stretch where it not for a pair of losses in extra innings. This has been par for the course for the A’s all season, as they have made a habit of keeping things close in games, only to come out on the losing end. Put it this way, how many teams with a record similar to that which Oakland has can boast a positive run differential. The answer would be none, as no other cellar dweller comes close to matching the +31 that the A’s are currently boasting. Chris Bassitt (1-4, 2.64 ERA) will shoot for back to back wins when he gets the start on Sunday.
As hard as the A’s have fought this season, they have just continually found ways to lose. I like the Astros to take advantage of that trend by getting the win on Sunday afternoon.
Sources:
ESPN.go.com (http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/_/id/33148/chris-bassitt)
Sports.Yahoo.com (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/9078/)