WEST SACRAMENTO -- If the Astros miss the playoffs by one game for the second year in a row, they will spend sleepless nights in the offseason lamenting how the sixth inning went awry in the 160th game of the season Friday night at Sutter Health Park.
Nobody will be more bothered than veteran second baseman Jose Altuve, who dropped a relay throw from shortstop Jeremy Peña at the bag with no outs on what could have been a double play to clear the bases. The A’s wound up scoring six runs in the sixth and held off a late rally to send the Astros to a 6-5 loss that guaranteed no team in the American League West will finish with a winning record.
Altuve said it’s a play he should have “100 percent” made.
“Really bad,” he said. “I feel terrible [because] right after, they scored all those runs. So not a good feeling.”
The Astros and Rangers remain tied for first place in the AL West with identical 79-81 records entering the penultimate day of the regular season, with Houston owning the tiebreaker and still controlling its own destiny. The Astros can clinch the division with a win Saturday night against the A’s and a Rangers’ loss at Minnesota.
“I think we control our future right now and if we win these next two games, we’re in,” Altuve said. “We’ve just got to focus on what we do in this clubhouse. We’ve got the players to do it. Our focus is going to be 100 percent on our game [Saturday] and we’ve got to go out there and win it.”
Astros starter Hunter Brown took a 1-0 lead into the sixth and gave up a leadoff single to Jeff McNeil. Zack Gelof followed with a grounder to Peña, who threw low to Altuve covering second with McNeil closing in. Altuve dropped the ball for an error that put runners at first and second base with no outs.
“Jeremy made a nice play getting in the hole and trying to get the forceout at second base,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “We know how good Altuve is around that bag, can really turn a double play. The throw was a little bit low, but we’ve seen Jose come up with that throw in the past and turn that double play. It was a big play, but we bounced back. We came close to taking the lead there.”
After a sac bunt pushed the runners into scoring position, Espada pulled Brown after 5 1/3 innings and 100 pitches. Things quickly spiraled out of control. Lefty Bennett Sousa gave up three consecutive singles on three pitches to right-handed hitters -- righties were 12-for-62 against Sousa prior to Friday -- to allow the A’s to take a 3-1 lead. Henry Bolte’s two-run triple off AJ Blubaugh pushed Houston into a 5-1 hole.
“I trust in Hunter but I thought that was a good time to bring Sousa in there and get some of those righties who he has pitched really well against this season,” Espada said.
Brown said he wanted to stay in the game and try to escape the jam, especially since Houston’s bullpen had thrown 20 innings in the previous three games. Espada admitted he thought about leaving him in.
“I felt like I was in a good spot in the order,” Brown said. “With the last couple of days, the bullpen’s banged up. Clearly, Joe wasn’t having a conversation about it. He’s the final decision-maker and that’s that. You have to come out of the game or stay in when they tell you to. Simple as that.”
A's starter Jacob Lopez, who had allowed 19 runs, including five home runs, in 12 1/3 innings in his previous three starts, threw six innings and held the Astros to two hits and one run on a fourth-inning homer by Christian Walker that put Houston ahead, 1-0.
Cam Smith homered to left in the seventh to make it 6-2, and Houston scored three times in the eighth on an RBI single by Yordan Alvarez, a sac fly by Altuve and a wild pitch. With the tying run at third base and go-ahead run at second, Smith swung and missed at a 3-2 fastball from Luis Medina that was above the strike zone to strand the runners.
“There for a minute, I thought we were going to make that comeback,” Espada said. “One swing away from getting that tying run and the winning run in the eighth. Lost the fight. Just came [up] short.”