{"id":662390,"date":"2026-04-04T07:11:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T07:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/662390\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T07:11:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T07:11:06","slug":"what-we-learned-as-athletics-offense-explodes-in-blowout-win-over-astros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/662390\/","title":{"rendered":"What we learned as Athletics’ offense explodes in blowout win over Astros"},"content":{"rendered":"

What we learned as Athletics’ offense explodes in blowout win over Astros<\/a> originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area<\/a><\/p>\n

BOX SCORE<\/a><\/p>\n

WEST SACRAMENTO \u2013 Home sweet home.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how the Athletics must be feeling after making their second home opener in Sacramento a literal smashing success Friday night.<\/p>\n

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Long before the game ended with a post-game fireworks show, the A\u2019s provided fans at Sutter Health Park with their own version of fireworks while stopping the Houston Astros\u2019 five-game winning streak with an 11-4 victory that had fans feeling a lot better about the club\u2019s prospects than they were a week ago.<\/p>\n

Lawrence Butler and Max Muncy both homered and combined to drive in seven runs. Five different players had at least one RBI and the A\u2019s scored more runs in one night than they had in their previous four games combined.<\/p>\n

The A\u2019s also got a strong outing from starting pitcher Jeffrey Springs, who pitched six solid innings to get his first win of the season and second consecutive over the Astros.<\/p>\n

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Houston scored two runs in the ninth but couldn\u2019t add on and lost to the A\u2019s for the eighth time in nine games dating to the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Here are the takeaways from Friday:<\/p>\n

Springs Bubbles Up<\/p>\n

Springs started off in a nice rhythm and carried that throughout the night to earn his first victory since beating Houston in September 2025.<\/p>\n

The lefty allowed two hits and one run with seven strikeouts and one walk across six innings during his outing Friday night.<\/p>\n

Springs got Astros leadoff hitter Jeremy Pena to strike out looking to begin the game then got some help from the ABS to work out of a jam in the third.<\/p>\n

Houston got two on with two out when Springs walked Jose Altuve on seven pitches but catcher Shea Langeliers immediately signaled for a challenge. Review showed the pitch caught part of the plate and the call was overturned into an inning-ending strikeout.<\/p>\n

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Timely Two-Out Hitting<\/p>\n

Through the first six games of the season the Athletics didn\u2019t have much luck hitting with two outs but turned that trend around with a quickness on a cool evening in Sacramento. All 11 runs that the A\u2019s scored came with two outs.<\/p>\n

Muncy, Jeff McNeil and Denzel Clarke got it started when they strung together three consecutive two-out hits in the second inning to drive in a run off Astros starter Cristian Javier.<\/p>\n

Lawrence Butler added a two-out RBI in the third followed by Muncy singling in two to push the A\u2019s lead to 4-1.<\/p>\n

The two-out magic continued when Tyler Soderstrom hit a high pop-up that fell in between three defenders for a hit and RBI. Jacob Wilson followed with an RBI single before Butler and Muncy hit consecutive home runs.<\/p>\n

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Tyler Soderstrom also had a two-out double for an RBI in the fifth.<\/p>\n

During the season-opening road trip Mark Kotsay\u2019s club couldn\u2019t come through with many clutch hits, hitting .190 (12-for-63) with two outs.<\/p>\n

Walk It Out<\/p>\n

The A\u2019s were understandably anxious at the plate in their first two series of the 2026 season but showed a lot more patience in their home opener.<\/p>\n

After drawing 12 walks in their first six games, the Athletics were much more poised against the Astros and drew seven walks, five of which scored.<\/p>\n

Players tend to be more free-swinging offensively early in the season so to see the A\u2019s waiting for and taking the free passes is an encouraging sign until the offense finds a good groove.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What we learned as Athletics’ offense explodes in blowout win over Astros originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[537,5,6175,14905,54,1950,1332,3239,5828,817,4810,1532,4,3226,8628,3442,1949,544],"class_list":{"0":"post-662390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athletics","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-cristian-javier","11":"tag-denzel-clarke","12":"tag-houston-astros","13":"tag-jacob-wilson","14":"tag-jeff-mcneil","15":"tag-jeffrey-springs","16":"tag-jeremy-pena","17":"tag-jose-altuve","18":"tag-lawrence-butler","19":"tag-max-muncy","20":"tag-mlb","21":"tag-mlb-athletics","22":"tag-nbcs","23":"tag-shea-langeliers","24":"tag-the-athletics","25":"tag-tyler-soderstrom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116345192439309351","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}