Astros ‘Spring’ to action with 7-run first

HOUSTON — The offensive onslaught began with — what else? — a single by George Springer and ended the same way. When the dust settled, the Astros had scored seven runs and were well on their way to a 12-2 rout of the A’s on Friday night at Minute Maid Park for their ninth win in their past 11 games.

Springer went 2-for-2 in the first inning as the Astros sent 12 batters to the plate and enjoyed their biggest outburst of the season. They finished the game with a season-high 16 hits and got contributions from every spot in the batting order, giving manager A.J. Hinch the luxury of pulling Jose Altuve and Springer out of the game for rest.

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“That was probably our best inning,” Hinch said. “We had 10 out of 12 quality plate appearances where we put excellent at-bats up against them. Not very often you have an inning where [Carlos] Correa makes two outs. That was a really, really impressive inning of continuing to do something positive …

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