Athletics at Houston Astros

After rallying late on Saturday night against the Astros, Lawrence Butler said no lead was safe against the Athletics. Down six runs midway through Sunday afternoon’s series finale, the A’s proved that was true. Brian Serven homered as part of a six-run fifth, Max Muncy hit a go-ahead home run and Jack Perkins earned his first win since April as the Athletics rallied for a 7-6 win in the rubber game at Daikin Park. “I think today was one of the better wins for this club in a long time,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “The start we had, we had some wins that were meaningful and impactful, but today was a great win for this group, especially just the way they fought. Not just last night, but today in grinding out a win being down 6-0.” Muncy gave the Athletics a one-run lead in the seventh with a solo home run to left-center off Astros reliever Steven Okert. “I was just looking to hit the ball hard somewhere,” Muncy said. “He threw me a couple sliders early, and then, he left that fastball middle, and I got it.” Trailing, 6-0, heading into the fifth, the A’s rallied to tie it up. Donovan Walton singled to lead off the inning and Darell Hernaiz walked to set up Serven’s Statcast-projected 402-foot three-run homer to cut the lead in half. Henry Bolte singled, and after Carlos Cortes struck out, Zack Gelof was hit by a pitch to set up Lawrence Butler’s RBI double and Tommy White’s two-run single to knot the score at 6. “It’s just about baserunners,” Kotsay said. “Just one at-bat at a time, get some guys on base and we did. We popped a three-run homer and that’s a big momentum shift in the game. Then, we continued to take good at-bats, and it resulted in probably one of the bigger innings for us in a while offensively.”