A’s pitching staff can’t contain Blue Jays in 10-8 loss

The Oakland A’s couldn’t contain the Toronto Blue Jays offense in a 10-8 loss on Saturday in Toronto. But the A’s offense fought back.

Entering Saturday’s game, the Oakland A’s had 33 runs with a .300 average over the four games of this road trip to Cleveland and Toronto. Blue Jays starter Jose Berrios disrupted their flow and looked to be cruising with an early 4-0 lead to work with.

The A’s didn’t get their first hit off him until Matt Chapman’s solo home run to lead off the fifth inning. With Berrios approaching 100 pitches, Matt Olson collected the A’s third hit with a double off the wall in center field. Mark Canha lined a first-pitch hanging curveball to score Olson from second base and knock Berrios out of the game.

Against side-armer Adam Cimber in relief, Chad Pinder hit a single with funky spin to score Canha and cut Toronto’s lead to one run.

Off a scoreless start against the New York Yankees on Sunday, Paul Blackburn wasn’t his sharpest against a Blue Jays lineup that takes full advantage of mistakes. Lourdes Gurriel, Danny Jansen and a two-run home run to Breyvic Valera. He was pulled with two outs in the fourth inning after putting runners on the corners.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. lined out off Daulton Jefferies to end the inning, and Jefferies stabilized the meat of the game with 2 1/3 scoreless innings pitched, one hit allowed. The A’s mounted a semblance of a comeback there.

Jake Diekman took over the seventh inning with a strong .174 opponents average against right-handed hitters, but Toronto’s right-handers burned him — Teoscar Hernandez hit a three-run home run to make it 7-3 after Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette reached to start the inning.

Lou Trivino’s recent struggles continued in a lower leverage situation. Unable to get control of the strike zone, Trivino hit two batters and gave up a hit to load the bases and couldn’t finish the inning. In relief, Burch Smith let all three runs score on Gurriel’s double.