Houston Astros Continue Bizarre Extra-Innings Trend in Brutal Loss to Athletics

The Houston Astros have a major problem when it comes to extra innings.

Sep 10, 2024; Houston, Texas, USA; Houston Astros relief pitcher Bryan Abreu walks to the dugout. / Thomas Shea-Imagn Images

Houston, we have a problem. An extra-innings problem.

Since MLB introduced the "ghost runner" rule in 2020, the Houston Astros have had a losing record in extra-innings games in four of five seasons.

They were 2-7 in 2020, 9-8 in 2021, 5-6 in 2022, 1-8 last year, and 5-10 this season.

That's a combined record of 21-33, which translates to a horrendous .388 winning percentage. In all other games during that span, Houston is 397-293 -- a .575 winning percentage.

Since the beginning of last year, the Astros are just 6-18 in extras following their latest debacle against the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday.

An infuriatingly rough loss in an enormously winnable ballgame.

Hitting 2-for-17 with RISP will rightly be the headline as we wasted jaw-droppingly golden chances to win this in extra-innings.

Lost in all that will be an impressive bounce-back outing from Spencer Arrighetti… pic.twitter.com/6ie7JDBj4z

— Astros Fans UK (@AstrosFansUK) September 11, 2024

Houston fell behind early at home after giving up a run in each of the first two innings, but Spencer Arrighetti settled down and stopped the bleeding. He pitched into the seventh before leaving with two outs, finishing with seven strikeouts and a quality start in a nice rebound performance from his previous outing.

Unfortunately for the rookie right-hander, he didn't get much run support.

The Astros didn't score until the bottom of the seventh, finally breaking through on Jon Singleton's RBI triple and Jose Altuve's RBI single.

After that, Houston blew multiple chances to win the game.

They stranded Yainer Diaz on second base with one out in the eighth, then left runners on second and third to end the ninth with the score still tied at 2-2.

Extra innings brought only more missed opportunities. Despite getting the automatic runner, the Astros failed to bring him home for the go-ahead run in the 10th and 11th innings.

In the 12th, the A's simply bunted their runner home, plating two runs on three consecutive bunts. Houston got one back in their half of the frame, but left the tying run on third with one out, losing 4-3.

Small ball, big results 🤷 pic.twitter.com/dEtmWjcLlJ

— Oakland A's (@Athletics) September 11, 2024

The Astros didn't deserve to win, not after leaving 13 men on base and going 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position. It's unclear why Houston keeps falling short in extra innings, especially for a team that prioritizes batting average and limits strikeouts.

Maybe it's bad luck, or maybe they're trying too hard.

Maybe they should try Oakland's strategy of bunting at every pitch.

Or maybe 54 games just isn't a large enough sample size. After all, the Astros started 24-30 through 54 games this year, and look where they are now.

Still, they'd be even better if they could just win in extra innings.