Reddick Gets Best of Old Roommate Healy, and the A's

HOUSTON - Enduring a five-game losing streak is tough enough on its own.

Watching a former teammate play a part in prolonging the misery is worse.

Josh Reddick wasn't the most dominant player on the field Friday for the Astros, but he picked his spots to make his presence felt, and that added a little salt to the wound for the A's in a 9-4 defeat that was their fifth in a row. They've now lost 10 straight times to Houston.

Reddick was mad at himself after not making the play on Ryon Healy's double in the sixth inning. He got another chance in the eighth and robbed his former roommate with a terrific catch as he slammed into the wall to end the inning. That stranded two runners and preserved what was a 7-4 lead at the time.

"Any time you're playing against your former team you wanna do well against them. Beating them makes it a little bit sweeter," Reddick said. "But when you can make a catch against a guy you became pretty good buddies with in a tight situation, it adds more to that."

After Healy got his first big league call-up last July, and before the A's traded Reddick to the Dodgers on Aug. 1, Reddick invited the rookie to move into his house as he cut his teeth in the bigs.

"I'm going to be giving Ryon a lot of crap, I guess you could say," Reddick said afterward. "He gave me a little signal and finger wave and shook his head on the (double). I got him back and a little bit of payback."

Reddick, who signed a four-year $52 million free agent deal with Houston in the offseason, was a pest to the A's in more unconventional ways too. Twice he reached base on catcher's interference calls when his bat hit the mitt of Stephen Vogt, another of Reddick's closest friends on the A's. It happened in the bottom of the first and contributed to the Astros' three-run rally that tied the game off Jharel Cotton after the A's had grabbed a 3-0 lead on Khris Davis' three-run homer.

Vogt talked about both interference plays with mild disgust, more upset with the situation itself than Reddick personally.

"Typically I'm pretty far back" behind the batter, Vogt said. "Reddick, I guess, has a pretty long swing when he's trying to go the other way. … It's just one of those freak things that obviously I'm not real thrilled about. It's just frustrating. You don't see it very often. It's not really how you swing the bat typically, but he does a good job going the other way, and it's on me. I've gotta make sure I'm far enough back and not reaching for the ball."

As for Reddick's important catch in the eighth, Vogt said:

"It's hard to see him in a different uniform, and I know he loved it here as well. It's hard to see him playing against us 19 times. To see him making catches like that, it's not very much fun when he's not wearing green."

However, the A's have more pressing issues than getting stung by old friends. They've struck out 57 times over the past five games, and with each day that passes, it's increasingly clear how much they miss the speed and playmaking ability of center fielder Rajai Davis, as well as the offensive production of shortstop Marcus Semien. Both are on the disabled list, Davis for the short term with a strained hamstring and Semien likely for a couple of months due to wrist surgery.

Cotton wasn't sharp, allowing a career-high 10 hits and failing to protect two early leads he was given. Those are the growing pains that will come for a rookie pitcher. What the A's can't afford are three-error nights like they had Friday and continuing to whiff at their current rate.

"When we went through our winning streak, we played real clean games, and now we're a little shoddy," manager Bob Melvin said. "There's a psychological play that goes with that. When you're not making plays and giving extra outs, it makes it tougher on pitchers and tougher mentally."

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