A's Fiers Badly Wants to Start Against Astros

Mike Fiers was the whistle-blower who outted the 2017 Houston Astros and their cheating ways. He's ready to face the Astros as many times as possible despite possible ill-will.

Don’t figure on A’s starting pitcher Mike Fiers backing down against the Houston Astros this year.

Fiers, who outted the Astros’ use of sign-stealing in 2017 that led ultimately to Houston being slapped with a $5 million fine by Commissioner Rob Manfred and the loss of first- and second-round draft picks this year and next, said he would like to start in as many of the six series in which the A’s and Astros will be pitted against each other as possible.

This despite some death threats and a general anger by Astros supporters directed at Fiers that led Manfred to say MLB will take every step to ensure his safety.

But if the Astros want him, they’ll have him at 60 feet, six inches.

“We’re going to have to beat the Astros to make the playoffs and win the division,” Fiers told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I would hope they’d pitch me against them. I feel like I have a good idea about how to pitch against them. I want to pitch against them.

“The way everything is going down, that’s the team to beat. No matter how it shapes up, I feel like when I’m out there, we have a great chance to win.”

Fiers, who was A’s ace last year at 15-4 with a 3.90 ERA, didn’t have much success against the Astros last year, 0-1 with a 9.39 ERA. His two worst starts of the season, including a one-inning, nine-run effort in September, came against the Astros. No matter. He says he wants to be on the mound against the Astros whenever possible.

There are ways that manager Bob Melvin and pitching coach Scott Emerson could tweak the rotation so that Fiers could miss Houston in one or both of the A’s April meetings between the two sides.

“That would hinder our game plan, to skip my starts to go around the Astros,” Fiers told the paper. “It wouldn’t make sense.”