A's lose again to Astros, split series

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Posted: 04/27/2014 01:56:22 PM PDT

Updated: 04/27/2014 01:58:26 PM PDT

HOUSTON -- Collin McHugh, claimed off waivers by the Astros from Colorado during the offseason and unable to make the Houston rotation to start the season, caught the A's completely off balance Sunday.

McHugh's pitching motion is a little unorthodox, but that hardly explains how he limited the A's to two hits in 82/3 innings as the Astros won 5-1 to earn a split of the series. Oakland had beaten Houston five consecutive games before the Astros rallied for wins Saturday and Sunday.

What would have been McHugh's first complete game and first career shutout vanished with two out in the ninth when Brandon Moss was hit by a pitch, stole second and scored on Alberto Callaspo's single. Raul Valdez came in to finish it up.

McHugh came in with a 1-8 career record and had never pitched more than seven innings in any start.

In the wake of his first win against the Mariners his last time out in which he threw shutout baseball for 62/3 innings, the right-hander didn't take his foot off the gas pedal Sunday. He loaded the bases in the first inning, pitched out of the jam, then allowed just one base runner until the ninth when he hit Moss.

Jed Lowrie singled to right as the game's second batter, and McHugh issued a couple of walks to load the bases. But after Josh Reddick popped to short to end the threat, McHugh seemed to kick into gear.

He had the A's off balance and hitting under the ball as evidenced by eight of the game's first dozen outs by A's hitters being recorded in the air. Before he was done, 14 of the 26 outs while McHugh was pitching were caught in the air, six of them by infielders.

For more on the A's, see John Hickey's Inside the A's blog at http://ift.tt/1ldGv3B. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JHickey3.