The Astros built an early lead Tuesday night against the division rival A's. Their seventh consecutive win was on the horizon but was met with resistance as Oakland, defending its first-place standing in the AL West, walked off with a 6-5 victory to snap Houston's six-game winning streak.

A's outfielder Ramón Laureano was the thorn in the Astros' side, accounting for three RBIs on two home runs against Houston starter Cristian Javier and a game-winning sacrifice fly against Bryan Abreu. Despite an early 3-1 lead, the Astros bullpen wasn't able to keep the A's at bay in the final frames.

“They're all painful, but I hate to blow them late like this, especially here in Oakland,” manager Dusty Baker said. "We left a few men on base, but we hit the ball great. [Cristian] Javier was great, except for the three homers.”

Oakland’s No. 9 hitter -- and former Astro -- Tony Kemp was retired by Jose Altuve on a slick diving play to begin the ninth, putting Houston two outs away from a chance to retake the lead in extra innings. Abreu was put to task with Mark Canha in the next at-bat, as Canha squeezed out a walk on a borderline call up in the zone. 

With the go-ahead run on first, Abreu’s next four pitches to the following two batters were all it took for the six-game streak to come to an end. Seth Brown’s single up the middle missed Yuli Gurriel’s diving attempt by mere inches in the shift and put runners on the corners for Laureano.

Abreu’s first pitch to the Astros’ Achilles heel was a down-and-away 88.5 mph slider that missed the strike zone by a couple of feet. The next pitch was meant to fool Laureano with a curveball down in the zone, but Abreu missed his spot set by catcher Martín Maldonado. 

Instead, he left it over the middle of the plate for Laureano to send it far enough into center field for Canha to tag up plate the winning run, pushing Oakland's division lead to 1.5 games over the Astros.

Houston was able to break the game’s first tie, thanks to an RBI double by Michael Brantley in the seventh. Enoli Paredes was the first reliever to face Oakland after Javier allowed a trio of long balls, two by Laureano and one surrendered to Matt Olson, which tied the game in the sixth inning.

In four April starts, Javier did not give up a home run in 20 2/3 innings, but he has allowed seven in May across four starts and 23 1/3 frames.

But after Paredes allowed two walks and a single, Baker lifted the right-hander for Andre Scrubb to protect the Astros’ two-run lead with the bases loaded and one out. Canha’s sacrifice fly cut the lead down to one run, but Scrubb retired Brown to temporarily limit the damage.

"We liked the matchup. I think it was the right thing to do,” Baker said of choosing to send Scrubb to the mound with the bases loaded. “It's never the right thing to do if it doesn't work out, but to hold them to one run with sacrifice fly in that situation, that was an outstanding job by Scrubb. I know that he's gonna throw strikes, he has a good breaking ball to combat left-handed hitters and he did a great job.

"We got two more games ago, so we can still come out of this victorious and win the series. The main thing is we got to put this behind us, and I mean it's painful big time,” Baker said. “You got to put it behind you and come back and score some more and keep them in the ballpark. I said that before we started the series, you got to keep them in the ballpark and stop from walking.”