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Astros starter Luis Garcia struck out seven in five-plus innings, but a grand slam allowed to Chad Pinder was too much for Houston to overcome Tuesday in another loss at Oakland.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Bat met ball and Luis Garcia hung his head. He took two steps forward and opted not to track the baseball’s trajectory. One swing exacerbated a slew of mistakes, the types Garcia hasn’t made across a three-year major league career. Control is never his problem. 

An absence of it Wednesday started his downfall. Garcia committed two cardinal sins in the third inning of a scoreless game. Chad Pinder pulverized a hanging slider for a grand slam to make the righthander rue them. Two of the four runs Pinder chased in reached via four-pitch walk. Both free passes arrived with two outs. 

Pinder’s grand slam magnified Garcia’s inability to harness any control. The four-run deficit created proved too great for a substitute-laden lineup to overcome. Houston sat Jose Altuve and Yuli Gurriel on Tuesday while still missing Michael Brantley. 

The hitters that remained could not solve a string of four A’s relievers. Oakland’s bullpen retired the final 12 Astros in order, handing Houston its second straight loss, 5-3, at the Coliseum. The A’s, now owners of a 37-63 record, have taken five of the past six games from the Astros.

“We had some opportunities, but they beat us,” manager Dusty Baker said. “What can you say?”

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Garcia threw a career-high 108 pitches and walked a career-worst four batters. Three of his free passes arrived on four pitches. Garcia threw just 63 of his pitches for strikes and failed to harness any command of his four-seam fastball. He threw 47 four-seamers and received just six called strikes. Garcia received 15 called strikes all evening. 

“I was feeling weird on the mound,” Garcia said. “I had a lot of time without pitching here, so maybe that’s one of the reasons, but I have to throw strikes.”

The absence of command is abnormal. Garcia threw 65 percent of his pitches for strikes during the 17 starts preceding this. He walked just 2.6 batters per nine innings. 

Only two major league lineups walk less than the A’s. The odd combination produced a combustion. Garcia struck out five of the first seven hitters he saw before imploding during a 34-pitch third inning. 

Garcia needed 66 pitches to procure his first nine outs Tuesday, continuing a concerning trend. Garcia needed 67 pitches to finish four innings during his final start before the All-Star break. Against the Yankees last week at Minute Maid Park, Garcia plodded through four innings on 79 pitches. The inefficiency is ill-advised given Houston’s pitching situation. The team is still deploying a six-man rotation and, as a result, operating a man short in its bullpen. 

“I’ve been struggling the last, maybe, three starts with that,” Garcia said. “I think I have to keep improving and try to not throw a lot of pitches before the fifth. I want to get late into the game because it helps the team, helps me, helps the bullpen, helps everybody.”

Garcia’s downfall during the third began when nine-hole hitter Jonah Bride beat out a grounder deep in the six-hole for Oakland’s first hit. He rebounded to retire leadoff man Vimael Machin on a slow-roller to the right side.

One out separated him from a scoreless frame. Garcia could not procure it. He yielded consecutive four-pitch walks to Ramón Laureano and Sean Murphy, missing with five cutters and three four-seamers. Pitching coach Josh Miller made a mound visit to settle his starter. 

Garcia got ahead of Pinder 1-2, but failed to find a putaway pitch. Pinder fouled a two-strike slider and four-seamer before pouncing on Garcia’s fatal mistake — a slider that did not break below the strike zone. The baseball traveled 412 feet and handed Frankie Montas a four-run advantage. 

Montas made his second start since a bout of shoulder inflammation sidelined him before the All-Star break. He is Oakland’s most valuable trade chip leading into Tuesday's deadline, a hard-throwing righthander with a devastating slider/splitter combo. Preserving his health and value is paramount. 

Montas threw 53 pitches in his previous start. The Astros forced him to toss 78 on Tuesday. Oakland staked its ace to a four-run lead after three innings. Montas could not protect it. He hung a splitter to start the fourth. Kyle Tucker redirected it 425 feet away into the right-field seats, a response his team sorely needed after Garcia’s grisly third.

Houston handled Montas well despite paltry run production. The Astros struck seven hits against him, worked three walks and struck out just four times. The lineup averaged a 91.7 mph exit velocity on the 17 balls it struck in play against him, suggesting some hard luck outs in an otherwise frustrating game. 

“He wasn’t vintage Frankie Montas tonight, yet,” Baker said. “We’ve seen him better, but he knows how to pitch and he pitched good enough to hold our offense down.’

With a three-run lead, the A’s attempted to squeeze a fifth frame from Montas. He procured two outs before the middle of Houston’s order arrived to see him a third time. Jeremy Peña struck a single and Yordan Alvarez drove him in with a double to deep right field. 

Machin threw away Alex Bregman’s ground ball from third base, allowing Alvarez to score and the tying run into scoring position. Aledmys Díaz flew out to strand him. No other Astro reached.

Chandler Rome joined the Houston Chronicle in 2018 to cover the Astros after spending one year in Tuscaloosa covering Alabama football - during which Nick Saban asked if he attended college. He did, at LSU, where he covered the Tigers baseball team for nearly four years. He covered most of the Astros' 2015 playoff run, too, as an intern for MLB.com