WEST SACRAMENTO -- For his struggles to begin the season, Astros starter Cristian Javier appeared to have lived to fight another inning Friday night when he got Tyler Soderstrom to hit a popup high into the air near the home plate circle with two outs in the fourth.
Astros catcher Yainer Diaz drifted into foul territory and then backpedaled into fair territory, only to watch the ball hit the ground behind him while trying to reach up to catch it. What should have been the third out of the inning turned into a six-run outburst by the A’s that sent them to an 11-4 win over the Astros, who saw their five-game winning streak snapped.
“It’s a tough play, and I mentioned in the pregame how this ballpark presents those challenges,” said Astros manager Joe Espada, referring to Sutter Health Park’s one deck of stands that give way to a lot of sky. “It’s a play that should be made.”
The first 11 runs scored by the A’s all came with two outs, marking the second time this season that’s happened. The Astros had 11 two-out RBIs against the Angels on March 28.
The messy inning only underscored the early-season struggles for Javier, who walked five batters and allowed six runs in 3 2/3 innings in his second start of the season. Then there was reliever Roddery Muñoz, the Rule 5 pick who followed Javier and proceeded to give up five runs, including consecutive homers by Lawrence Butler and Max Muncy to the delight of the Opening Day crowd.
Javier hit 95.2 mph with his fastball and generated 10 whiffs, so the quality of his stuff wasn’t bad. It was a matter of command. Javier said he had trouble gripping the ball.
“I’ve been working on some stuff mechanically, but I think what happened today was I felt like the ball was a little bit too slippery, so I couldn’t get a good grip to be able to finish with the pitch,” he said.
Prior to the fourth-inning disaster, Javier gave up three consecutive singles at the bottom of the order in the second inning that led to a run and walked a pair of batters in the third, both of whom scored as part of a three-run inning that put the A’s ahead, 4-1. A two-out walk in the fourth wouldn’t have hurt him had Diaz been able to catch Soderstrom’s popup.
“It was really difficult to see the ball,” Diaz said. “It was a little bit farther up than [I believed] it really was.”
Still, Javier’s command issues through two starts have to be a concern. Finding a way to get him on track will be one of the focal points for the Astros’ pitching coaches going forward. In 8 1/3 innings this season, he’s allowed 12 earned runs and walked nine batters, while recording only three strikeouts. He threw only 11 first-pitch strikes to 21 batters he faced Friday.
“We need to get him in the zone more early so he can go to work and execute the pitches he wants to when he's ahead in the count,” Espada said. “The walks and getting behind in the count, that’s a lineup that feeds off of that. We’ve just got to make our adjustments. We’ve just got to get him right.”
Javier, a key member of the Astros’ rotation from 2022-23, hasn’t been the same pitcher since returning from Tommy John surgery last year. He made eight starts after returning in August and posted a 4.62 ERA in 37 innings with 15 walks and 34 strikeouts, but has yet to regain his pre-surgery form.
“He’s trying his best out there,” Diaz said. “His command, the issue is that he’s falling behind the hitters and the hitters are staying back a little and taking more pitches. It’s a thing of adjustment.”
Muñoz has walked six batters in four innings this year while allowing seven runs and seven hits, including three homers. His stuff generates swings and misses in the zone, but he might be running out of time to get results.
“It’s really good stuff,” Espada said. “It’s a really good, live arm, but at this level, you have to throw the ball over the plate. It’s important. Hitters here, even with the ABS, they’re going to force you to throw three strikes over the plate. You’ve got to challenge hitters in the box, but the stuff is really good, and when he gets it over, he can get swings and misses.”