OAKLAND — The strict pitch limit Paul Blackburn was on turned out to be unnecessary.
Making his second start back from the disabled list, Blackburn was roughed up for eight runs on eight hits and two walks with no strikeouts over 1 1/3 innings in Wednesday’s 13-5 blowout loss to the Astros in front of 9,164 fans at the Coliseum. It was the shortest outing of Blackburn’s young big league career.
Blackburn had surpassed manager Bob Melvin’s expectations in his first start back from the 60-day DL last weekend against the Royals by allowing just one run over six innings of work.