Lose a Few, Lose a Few...

GAME 17: Athletics 11, Astros 3
GAME 18: Athletics 4, Astros 3
GAME 19: Athletics 4, Astros 1

While I was off being busy with Passover, the Sabbath, and hosting an engagement party for my daughter and her fiancé, the Astros were continuing their slide into 2013-style oblivion. On the heels of being swept out in Kansas City, they did a repeat in Oakland. My expectations for the team this season are very modest: Just win one game in each series, resulting in a better win-loss record than last year. Back to back sweeps are not an encouraging sign.

I didn't bother to read more than the headlines and box score for Friday night's 11-3 thrashing. Jarred Cosart did some serious damage to his early season ERA, giving up 7 earned runs in his 1/3 inning start. Amazingly, Oakland only needed 3 hits to accomplish its big inning. Of course, 2 of the hits were homers, and there were 4 walks interspersed, along with a wild pitch for good measure. Altogether a sad start for the Cosart-Castro anagram team. In all, Astros pitchers allowed as many walks as hits in this blowout, with each of the 5 pitchers giving up at least one free base.

Equally disheartening was the Game 2 meltdown of Chad Qualls, who gave up 3 runs in the bottom of the ninth on Saturday afternoon. The Astros came this close to pulling off a 3-1 win to end their losing streak, before Qualls took the mound. It should have been obvious, after a leadoff homer and then a walk, that Qualls wasn't dealing his best stuff, but he's an experienced veteran - so they left him in to give up 3 singles to blow the game. Give Qualls the benefit of the doubt - he was just coming off an icky virus that's been going around the clubhouse. But I'm not really sure about Qualls in the Astros' rotation of closers. Been there, done that, right?

In the third loss of the Oakland series (the only game I got to watch live, due to the Sabbath), Brad Peacock had a fair start, giving up a 2 run homer in the first inning before settling in for 5 innings. Peacock's up to replace Lucas Harrell, who may or may not take his offered place in Oklahoma City. Let's hope that he does better than Harrell, with a much better attitude!

There will be better news in my next posting, as the Astros headed up to Seattle to play the most unfortunate Mariners.