OAKLAND -- For as thrilling as Friday night’s victory was for the A’s, it also came at the expense of a bullpen that grinded out seven frames of the 13-inning marathon. Facing a quick turnaround Saturday afternoon, the A’s were desperate for length from
Bassitt almost didn’t get a chance to complete six. He was already at 105 pitches through five and surrendered a leadoff single to Yuli Gurriel. Blake Treinen was getting warm in the bullpen, but A’s manager Bob Melvin was committed to giving the right-hander a chance to pitch his way out, and he did by inducing a double play and flyout to end the inning.\n\n“He was struggling with his command all game and fighting with himself a little bit out there. But after the fifth, I felt pretty good about how he was throwing,” Melvin said. “I was willing to go to 120 pitches if we had to.”\n\nGiven the state of the bullpen, Bassitt took a little more pride being able to finish off that last inning of work, walking off the mound with a sense of relief.
“Our bullpen was gassed,” Bassitt said. “I couldn’t look at those guys and be like, ‘I was tired.’ Every one of those guys are dead tired. I was fine to throw the sixth, and that’s what I did.”\n\nUnable to locate his fastball low in the zone throughout the day, Bassitt relied on his slow curveball in big moments to escape danger. He used it to record three of his four strikeouts, including a punchout of Yordan Alvarez in a bases-loaded jam in the first and another of Martin Maldonado to end the third and limit the damage to just two runs.\n\n“That’s part of who he is. He needs that pitch,” said Melvin of Bassitt’s curveball, which sits in the low 70s to complement his 98 mph fastball. “It’s a real slow pitch and after his fastball, that’s a tough one to stay with. It’s tough to track, a big part of his arsenal.”
Bassitt limited the Astros to three runs on eight hits and two walks. He’s done his best work over the past month, now holding a 1.80 ERA over his past four starts. But he made sure to credit his offense, which provided plenty of support on Saturday with five runs in the third and another three runs in the fifth.\n\n“The offense allowed it to happen. They bailed me out,” Bassitt said. “We don’t score as many runs as we did, I’m easily out in the fifth.”\n\nScoring eight runs is not unusual for the A’s high-powered offense, but the way they went about doing it on Saturday was quite foreign for them.
Of their 13 hits, only three were extra-base hits. All eight runs came via single, walk, or sacrifice fly, marking just the third game the A’s have won this season without hitting a home run.\n\n“You have to win games like that,” Melvin said. “We rely on it quite a bit, but the deeper you get into the season against better pitching, you have to manufacture runs.”\n\n
“Seemed like everybody just took good at-bats,” Chapman said. “You can’t just rely on the home run every time, especially in this ballpark. To string hits like that and draw walks was important.”\n\nNow comes Sunday, which presents the A’s with a chance to sweep the Astros over four games for the first time since Sept. 8-10, 2017. After taking their lumps against Houston for most of the year as they entered this series losers of nine of their first 10 matchups, the A’s have a chance to make a statement.\n\n“I think we kind of approached the Astros the wrong way as a whole. Giving them too much credit, for me personally, has been a problem,” Bassitt said. “Are they a top-two or three team in baseball? Yeah. But when you give them even more credit, everything kind of snowballs on you. When you attack them, it makes life a lot easier.”
**Piscotty day to day** \nAfter leaving the game in the seventh due to jamming his right ankle on a slide into second base,