After taking over the AL West lead a week ago for the first time this season, the Houston Astros lost two straight games to the Oakland A's this week, dropping the series, and closing the gap even closer in the AL West.
The Astros have now lost two in a row, while the Texas Rangers have won four games in a row, and are just one game back of the Astros. As of this writing, the Mariners are handling up on the Angels, which means they will close to 1.5 games back of Houston.
Houston was blanked Monday night 4-0, before falling 6-2 on Tuesday night as Justin Verlander gave up five earned runs in seven innings, including allowing homeruns to Langeliers and Kemp. The Astros bats fell completely quiet in this series, with just three hits on Monday, and six hits on Tuesday.
The Astros have just 16 games remaining in the regular season and will need to start stringing together some wins if they still want to win the division.
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