Five homers lifts A’s over Astros

Series win secured. Series sweep tomorrow?

Oakland used the long ball in a big way tonight, with five separate players hitting home runs for the Green & Gold as the Athletics topped the Astros 8-2 in the second game of three, securing the series win and getting a chance at a sweep of the AL West Lead Astros.

Outfielder Lawrence Butler got things started right away tonight, smacking a leadoff triple to start the bottom of the first. The next two batters went down to Astros rookie right-hander Jake Bloss and it felt like the team might strand Butler. Enter All-Star snub Brent Rooker, who did a bit more than knock in Butler:

That was Rook’s 23rd blast of the season and he is easily on pace to break his career-high in bombs from last year. At this rate he’s on pace for 38 home runs. Fingers crossed he can push it a bit and cross that 40 threshold.

It took a bit longer for Houston to get going against Oakland starting pitcher Osvaldo Bido but they got to him in the top of the third as Astros catcher Victor Carantini hit a solo blast to half the lead. Other than that one single blemish Bido tossed five quality innings, putting together an impressive performance for his second big league start by holding down an Astros lineup with some heavy hitters.

-Osvaldo Bido: 5 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 6 K, 1 HR, 70 pitches

If Bido was a bit more stretched out it’s perfectly reasonable to have expected him to go out there for a sixth. Yet with a big lead and already approaching his pitch threshold it was time. Bido deserves a ton of credit for keeping Houston guessing and off balance, preventing them from even thinking of getting back into this game. Will tonight’s start earn him another look in the rotation though? We’ll have to wait and see.

And then came the homer barrage. First up was the red-hot Butler to get that run back in the bottom half of the third:

The next inning saw the Athletics go back-to-back. First up was Seth Brown with his eighth long ball of the year…

… followed closely behind by Zack Gelof with his 13th of the season:

It hasn’t been easy going for Gelof but at least he’s showing he still has power in that bat of his. Last year in the second half is where he thrived so the hope is that history will repeat itself with Gelof.

The scoring kept going in the fifth as Abraham Toro collected an RBI single to bring in JJ Bleday, and Butler collected his third hit of the day the next frame with an RBI double, putting him just a single away from the cycle:

Unfortunately the cowardly Astros would walk Butler on five pitches in his last at-bat of the night in the bottom of the eighth, thus depriving him of the chance at the cycle:

Still, you can’t take away from the amazing night Butler has had. He has been the hottest baseball player on the planet recently, and people notice. He’s now hitting a whopping .397 with 7 long balls in the month of July. The young stud is looking more and more comfortable in the big leagues by the day and the league better be ready for it. Exciting!

The final home run of the night came from our starting catcher Shea “Bangeliers”, putting the official icing on the cake for this one:

That was Langeliers’ 19th long ball of the season, pushing him into second place in home runs among all catchers in baseball and just one behind the leader Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, who has also played in 10 more games. Who wins this race will be something fun to watch in the second half.

After Bido it was the bullpen’s job to finish this one off. And they did, as five relievers finished this one out with little to no action except for a Jeremy Peña solo home run in the ninth. That’s another well-rounded win for our guys right there.

The A’s are playing some good ball coming out of the All-Star break. They’re 4-1 and could easily be 5-0 if the bullpen didn’t implode on Sunday. Still, anyone would take 4-1, right? The winning has been a team effort but extra roses go to the offense, which has come out swinging after the break. They’re averaging 7.6 runs per game and the lineup has some serious hitters at the top and middle of the order. Now if we can get the bottom of the order going (ahem, Gelof), then we got something cooking.

The club goes for the sweep tomorrow afternoon in the final game of the home stand. It will also be the final time the Houston Astros come to the Coliseum, so there’s that. The Athletics are set to throw out lefty JP Sears while Houston will counter with righty Hunter Brown. Should be a good pitching matchup, but with the way the A’s are swinging who knows?