Wrap: Seattle 7, Oakland 4. A’s 71-54 (2nd Place, 1 1/2 games back)
This was a terrible game. The A’s lost. The A’s lost their catcher too as Derek Norris left with a broken toe during quite possibly the A’s worst inning of the year: the top half of the eighth inning. This inning saw Sean Doolittle come out to pitch with a 4-2 lead and then this happened: Michael Saunders singles on a sharp line drive to center field; Henry Blanco doubles on a line drive to left field; Brad Miller singles on a line drive to center field scoring Saunders; Nick Franklin singles on a sharp line drive to left field scoring Brendan Ryan who pinch-ran for Blanco; Doolittle is replaced by Ryan Cook who walks Kyle Seager; Kendrys Morales reaches on a fielder’s choice that scored Franklin and left both Franklin and Norris injured and out of the game; Justin Smoak struck out; a wild pitch scores Seager; Jesse Chavez replaced Cook and then eventually got the remaining M’s out without incident.
The Bats
Lineup vs. Joe Saunders: Jed Lowrie DH, Norris C, Josh Donaldson 3B, Yoenis Cespedes LF, Nate Freiman 1B, Chris Young CF, Josh Reddick RF, Alberto Callaspo 2B, Eric Sogard SS.
The M’s did most of their scoring in one inning whereas the A’s did all of their scoring in one inning: the first. Lowrie tripled, Norris singled him home. Donaldson homered to score him and Norris, after a ground out by Cespedes, Freiman hit his fourth home run and the A’s scoring was done. They managed eleven hits, again struggled with runners in scoring position (1-for-9) and stranded nine runners. Can’t do that. The one hit with runners in scoring position was that Norris single. That was it. Callaspo went 3-for-4, Lowrie and Donaldson both 2-for-5 to cover all the mulit-hit games for the A’s.
The Pitching
Appearances: Sonny Gray, Doolittle, Cook, Chavez.
Gray had a sparkling outing but in a tough lesson learned in the bigs (though true in the minors too) that can mean nothing at the end of the day. Seven innings, just two runs on two hits the only mistake a two-run home run to Franklin, with two walks and seven strikeouts. This kid is looking great. He now has thrown 25 2/3 innings of 1.44 ERA, 2.76 FIP, 9.7 K/9, 2.5 BB/9 and 0.7 HR/9 baseball. The .169 BABIP won’t keep up, nor will the 80.3% strand rate but no one would complain if he pitched to a 2.76 ERA. Doolittle didn’t do little, he did nothing and rightly deserved the loss failing to retire any of the four batters he faced, ultimately getting charged with four earned runs. cook didn’t do much better in his third of an inning walking two, striking out one and allowing a run to score. Chavez wasn’t pretty but kept Seattle off the board with an inning and two thirds allowing a hit, walking two and K’ing three.
Hero/Zero
You enter with a two run lead. You leave responsible for a two run deficit. You are the zero which marks the numbers of outs he recorded. Not a nice outing Mr. Doolittle.
