A’s ALDS Game 1 lost as Marcus Semien’s foul spurred a big spike in Houston

LOS ANGELES – On a day with the ball flying out of a park, a simple globe spotting Game 1’s trajectory out of the best series out of five.

Marcus Simien’s two-point foul in the sixth game at Dodger Stadium resulted in four unearned games, and the Astros – who dropped by three early in the match and two in the game – went on to win a 10-5. Shortstop Carlos Correa, the Houston team member who won the 2017 World Championships in Los Angeles, hit two of the three homeowners in the Astros, and George Springer scored four of the 16 hits in Houston.

Team A lost the first game in each of the last eight post-game series dating back to ALCS 2006, including three single ground game losses. Last week, they dropped the first game against the White Sox before returning and winning the next two to take on the Wild-Card series.

“We don’t panic or anything like that,” said Chris Bassett, the Oakland player. “Play our game, don’t worry about all the extra nonsense and fix the script.”

“We have to look at it like we have to win three out of four in the series,” said base number one Matt Olson. “We did this many times during the season.”

JB Wendelken, who had a great regular season and had not scored any goals in the wild card series, came on Monday with A 5-3 lead and two quick wins, but Semien, finalist in the Gold Glove both past two seasons. He couldn’t handle a routine hitter by Josh Riddick.

“It’s tough,” Olson said. “Riddick is a good runner, he hit him from the end of the bat and he was rolling very slowly and we were turning – Marcus had to get past second base. It happens. The things that happened next is baseball. Put it in the rearview and come back tomorrow.”

That opened the door to Houston: Singles Martin Maldonado, then Springer doubled their third base streak, sending Riddick.

“Two out of, no one scored, they got four – you’ve got to give them some recognition, too,” said Team A manager Bob Melvin. “They hit some good pitches. They were so tough after that round opened, and they took advantage of that.”

Jose Altov, who hit 0.219 during the regular season and was unsuccessful in the Wild Cards series, hit a single, and Jake Dickman took over from Windelken and assigned the RBI song to Michael Brantley.

“Mistakes happen,” Bassett said. “Obviously, it happened with the throw-the-ball – we can’t let this snowball out in four runs, like a pitcher.”

A series of reptiles began in the second half when Olson walked in with one of them, and Chris Davis – who had a rare start against the right hand – shot the seats at the start of the Astros Lance McCullers Jr.

Davis has had a nice story for Oakland for the past several weeks as his racket has started to warm up. 296 arrived in September, and his post-season buddies matched his production in the regular 60-game season.

Melvin said, “He’s been doing his best here recently.”

“He’s back,” Bassett said. “I think that kind of catch up with the world is that it’s really back in shape.”

In the next inning, rookie Sean Murphy hit a volleyball into the midfield that carried and carried … directly over the fence, his second post-season Homer. Houston coach Dusty Baker was interviewed on TBS during the hitting, and when the ball shot in the air, Baker said, “Oh, God. Undoubtedly, Team A recalls that Baker complained during the regular season series that Astros were promoting Murphy “like Johnny Pinch.”

Olson led the fourth net with a middling shot from McCollers, ending funk 0 to 13. But they squandered more chances to score in the third and fourth stages. They had two without endings in the third, but Jake Lamb hit a double and Mark’s goal was as if. The fourth time, they had men in the corners without limits, Ramon Lauriano hit, Murphy hit a broken collector and Tommy La Stella got out. Auckland went 0-6 with men in the center of scoring, but A did not even succeed in putting the men down in the final stages. Only one man (Chad Bender, walks in) has arrived in the last four rounds against the game of Houston, which did not allow running this season.

Oakland’s best performance that day shouldn’t be lost in dribbling: Yosmir Beatty took on Bassett in fifth place by two and not parted with Brantley, then let Alex Bregman pop up and Kyle Tucker to fly. This is a big time, Olson said. “That’s what Joseph does.”

Bergman hit Homer solo off Bassett in the fourth game and hit Correa Homer from two rounds in the same half, then added a solo blast from Lu Trevino in the seventh. Astros added two more, in ninth place, against rookie Jordan Weams, who were added to this series’ roster after being excluded from the wild cards roster.