Valencia, Chavez power A’s to 2-1 win over Astros

In his second straight game at the No. 4 spot in the order for the Oakland Athletics, Valencia delivered an early two-run double to support right-hander Jesse Chavez’s strong start in a 2-1 victory over the Houston Astros on Saturday.

The Houston Astros look to conclude their visit with the Oakland Athletics with a victory.

Three separate batters for the Athletics swatted grounders that left the bat as cans of corn, deflected off Astros ace starter Dallas Keuchel, and ended up as infield singles.

“Since he’s been in the rotation, you see each and every time he’s out there he’s more and more confident”, A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “Sonny pitched a heck of a game tonight and we’ll come get them tomorrow”. Bassitt hasn’t allowed more than three earned runs in any of his six starts this season, and he tossed seven scoreless innings in a win over the Orioles on Tuesday. He used a career-high 121 pitches to get by means of six innings, permitting two earned runs and 5 hits with three walks and eight strikeouts.

“We’ll just monitor him”, Melvin said. “Something that I’ll just go back to work on and build off of, find the things that put me in trouble a little bit early on that I can eliminate next time”. I admit to not having a great feel for this one so I’ll take the better odds…

Outfielder Preston Tucker hit a solo shot off Chavez in the fourth inning. “We didn’t get into the game today and you don’t think the first inning is going to bite you when you hold them to two runs, we walked a couple of guys”.

Mike Fiers makes his first start for Houston since being obtained along with Gomez from Milwaukee for four prospects July 30. Houston acquired Perez (3.10 ERA) via trade from the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night.

Coco Crisp left the game before the start of the third inning due to an illness.

The Giants had a similar situation earlier this season where they played an East Coast night game on a Sunday, flew home and played Monday.

Sean Doolittle was back in Oakland after pitching one ideal inning for Class-A Stockton in a rehab appearance on Friday.

Chris Bassitt will make it three in a row if he duplicates his latest effort on Sunday.

The under is 11-2-1 in Houston’s last 14 road games while the Astros are 11-5 in their last 16 games as a favorite and 15-7 in their last 22 Sunday games.

Astros shortstop Jose Altuve went 2 for four to increase his hitting streak at Coliseum to 19 video games, the longest lively streak for any participant. He is 1-2 with a 2.25 ERA since being recalled from Triple-A Nashville on July 25.