IN SPORTS: A’S STUMBLE IN PLAYOFF OPENER
OAKLAND — Not since New York Yankees’ Don Larsen in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series has a perfect game been thrown in a postseason game. The Oakland A’s flirted with being on the unfortunate end of the rare feat in Game 1 of the AL wild-card round Tuesday.
Chicago’s Lucas Giolito took a perfect game against the A’s into the seventh inning, broken up with leadoff hitter Tommy La Stella’s single up the middle. Oakland went on to lose to the White Sox 41 at the Coliseum.
A perfect game wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Giolito has emerged as one of the game’s most dominant right-handers and had already thrown a no-hitter this season, against Pittsburgh on Aug. 25.
And the A’s bats have cooled off of late. For as meaningless as offensive momentum is said to be in baseball, an Oakland lineup tailored to squeeze as much power from Chicago’s ace as possible was just as dry as it was in the final weeks of the regular season.
If the A’s want to escape their crippling postseason drought, they’ll need to score some runs as manager Bob Melvin spelled out afterward.
“We have to do more offensively,” Melvin said. “We can’t score one run and think we can win tomorrow.”
Oakland had no answers for Giolito’s changeup, mixed to perfection with a biting slider and mid90s fastball.
“He had it working today,” La Stella said. “He threw the ball extremely well.”
The A’s finally rid themselves of Giolito in the eighth inning when Mark Canha drew a leadoff walk and Jake Lamb — who had two hard hits in his previous at-bats — knocked a single into right field to put runners on the corners with no outs. Ramón Laureano hit into a fielder’s choice to score Canha for the A’s only run.
With Laureano on, Chad Pinder hit a line drive with a .710 expected batting average that Anderson robbed at shortstop for the second out. Murphy followed with a single, but La Stella grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.
The A’s went down in order in
the ninth against Alex Colóme.
They just couldn’t make the right adjustments until they saw Giolito a third time. By then, the deficit was pretty much insurmountable against a tough bullpen.
It didn’t matter that comebacks have been a staple of the A’s success this season — and last. They have 16 comeback wins in 2020, including six walkoffs and six in extra innings. But in the postseason, against good teams and pitchers, rallying is harder to achieve.
So, a shadow continues to follow the A’s in the postseason. Oakland extended its playoff losing streak to six games, tying a record the organization set between Oct. 10, 2006 and Oct. 7, 2012.
Jesús Luzardo showed the White Sox his electric stuff that’s earned him national recognition. But he allowed two home runs, both on egregious fastball mistake pitches over the plate.
“Two mistakes, two home runs,” Luzardo said. “That’s a team that hits a lot of home runs, and they capitalized on those two mistakes. Otherwise, I feel like my pitches were good after that.”
Luzardo was rolling at first, staying ahead in most counts. But that didn’t matter against Adam Engel. Luzardo got ahead 0-2 and then served up a 97-mph fastball that catcher Sean Murphy wanted a little higher up in the zone. The pitch ended up middle-middle, and Engel launched it over the left-field wall for a solo blast.
Against José Abreu a second time, Luzardo fell behind in the count 2-0 — the second ball call could have gone either way — and served up a 96-mph fastball right over the plate. Abreu, an AL MVP candidate, smashed it into the left-field bleachers for a two-run homer and a 3-0 advantage for Chicago.
“I was trying to go down and away, left it more middle than it was supposed to,” Luzardo said. “Guy is an MVP-caliber-type hitter, so you have to be careful, and I made a mistake. That’s not where I meant to put it.”