A’s finding no relief on the horizon as bullpen issues continue

Almost lost amid the bizarre scene of catcher Sean Murphy getting not only one but two catcher’s interference calls Monday night was another failure by the Athletics bullpen.

Murphy came in with five catcher’s interference calls in 225 games and never more than one in a game. In a six-run seventh inning that led to a 9-5 loss to the Yankees, Murphy had two — leading to free bases for Yankees sluggers Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. A’s manager Mark Kotsay attributed the errors to Murphy reaching too far in an attempt to frame low pitches for strikes.

Afterward, Murphy told the San Francisco Chronicle, “Just got too close . . . that’s a terrible mistake. Two terrible mistakes. I feel terrible for my pitchers.”

Murphy’s mistakes were damaging, but it’s not like A’s relievers held up their end after Kotsay gave starter Paul Blackburn a debatable hook. Blackburn had given up three runs but struck out a careerhigh seven in five innings. With 91 pitches, it was conceivable Blackburn could have gone one more, having thrown 108 pitches in an earlier start in Cleveland in which he worked eight innings.

Adam Oller worked out of a jam of his own making in the sixth (two walks) and got the hook with another walk in the seventh. A.J. Puk was summoned to face Anthony Rizzo, uncorked a wild pitch and hit Rizzo in the elbow. Then after getting ahead of Josh Donaldson 0-2, he gave up a two-run double. All that was left was for Austin Pruitt to give up a two-run double to catcher Jose Trevino.

“It’s kind of been our theme here. We’re just trying to not give up free bases and unfortunately, that came back to haunt us tonight,” Kotsay said.

Kirby Snead pitched a scoreless eighth, but the damage was done — the A’s bullpen gave up six runs, four earned, on three hits with four walks and one hit batter.

Puk also uncorked two wild pitches to bring home runs in when Frankie Montas departed after eight shutout innings last week against Seattle.

“Felt good about the matchup with Rizzo,” Kotsay said. “First pitch gets away from him and then he gets 0-2 on Donaldson and tried to execute an up-and-in fastball. Left it out over and Donaldson’s a good hitter. Put a good swing on that and it ended up being kind of the game right there.”

The A’s were coming off winning two straight games in Kansas City with Lou Trivino getting back-toback saves. Although both were high-wire acts in terms of baserunners, Trivino ended up getting out of his own trouble and will likely be the closer after a day of rest.

After performing reasonably well in April, the A’s are giving Kotsay and pitching Scott Emerson nowhere to turn. They have three blown saves in their last five games and over the last 29 games have a 37 record with three saves (including the two by Trivino) with eight blown saves and a 6.54 earned-run average.