Chad Pinder’s HR helps rally A’s past Astros, trail ALDS 2-1

Associated Press | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 7:59 p.m.

Athletics pitcher Liam Hendriks reacts after striking out the Astros’ Josh Reddick during the eighth inning Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES — Chad Pinder tied the score with a three-run homer in the seventh inning, Sean Murphy hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the eighth and the Oakland Athletics rallied past the Houston Astros, 9-7, on Wednesday to avoid elimination in their AL Division Series.

Houston leads the best-of-five series 2-1 and can advance to its fourth straight AL Championship Series with a victory in Game 4 on Thursday.

The Astros wasted leads of 2-1 and 7-4, and the Athletics bounced back after giving up advantages of 1-0 and 4-2.

Houston’s bullpen had stifled Oakland in the first two games with seven shutout innings of one-hit relief, but Pinder ended that dominance.

Houston led 7-4 when Marcus Semien and Tommy La Stella had back-to-back singles off Josh James starting the seventh. Pinder hit a first-pitch slider to the opposite field for Oakland’s fifth homer, a drive chased by right fielder Kyle Tucker until he ran out of room at the short wall.

La Stella, Mark Canha, Matt Olson and Semien also homered for the A’s, whose entire infield went deep. Teams outhomering opponents are 18-0 in the postseason.

The teams have combined for 18 homers — including seven in Game 3 — in the neutral-site series at Dodger Stadium featuring all day games. After two straight days in the 90s, the temperature cooled to 81 degrees.

Winner Liam Hedricks pitched three innings of one-hit, scoreless relief.

Carlos Correa singled leading off the bottom of the eighth, and Tucker reached on catcher’s interference by Murphy, a call the A’s challenged unsuccessfully.

Yuli Gurriel popped out, Aedmys Diaz advanced the runners with a groundout and pinch-hitter Josh Reddick struck out, smashing his bat on the ground and breaking it over a knee. Houston took a 7-4 lead with five runs in the fifth, when the Astros sent 10 batters to the plate. Diaz hit a tying, two-run homer off rookie starter Jesus Luzardo, and Brantley, Bregman and Tucker drove in runs. Houston was slowed when Jose Altuve was thrown out on a relay by Olson at first when he tried to go from first to third on Brantley’s single.