June 4, 2016
Astros 6, Athletics 5 (12 innings)
W – Feldman (3-3)
L – Madson (2-2)
There are always some positives to come out of an extra inning win, so let’s hit those first.
The team has gotten really good at bouncing back from adversity lately. The A’s loaded the bases on McHugh with nobody out in the top of the 2nd and built a 3-0 lead. The team answered in the bottom half of the inning, getting two runs back on a monster Gattis two-run homer to left and then tying it up with a Marisnick sac fly later in the inning. They got a 4-3 lead in the 4th and extended it to 5-3 in the 5th.
McHugh got bounced a couple batters after giving up a leadoff blast to Danny Valencia in the 6th, and the bullpen came in and performed up to recent expectations… except for the 9th, when it performed down to recent expectations. But that’s bad stuff and I’m not done with the good stuff. Feliz, Harris, Sipp, Giles, and Feldman combined for six innings of shutout ball. Well done, guys.
So extra innings happened, and things didn’t really get interesting until the 12th inning. Springer led off the inning with a double and moved to third when Altuve sac-bunted(!) him over. Kind of a bold strategy given Altuve’s hot bat but it worked out in the end. Correa lined a would-be double down the right field line to score Springer easily (he probably would’ve scored from second anyway, even without Altuve’s sacrifice) and walk it off. This team was losing these types of games this time last month and now they appear to no longer be spooked or snakebit by them.
Now it’s time to talk about Luke Gregerson. Hinch may think that tonight is not the time to talk about him (he said as much in the postgame presser) but it’s really time for someone else to start closing games. With his game-tying, save-blowing homer to Jed Lowrie in the 9th, Gregerson now leads the majors in blown saves with five, and those blown saves are directly responsible for 16 innings of extra play this season. That also doesn’t include the bottom halves of 9th innings that wouldn’t have needed to be played were those save converted
Making Gregerson the closer in 2015 was defensible since there weren’t a whole lot of other options on the roster. This year they have: Giles, who, despite his failings, has closer stuff and has improved greatly over the last month; Feliz, who looks like a natural closer if he doesn’t end up starting games; and Harris, who may not be a natural closer but sure as hell looks the part this season. One of these guys – probably Feliz – needs to get a look, now, before the team’s extra-inning fortunes worsen again.