A’s bats go quiet in Game 1 loss to Chicago
Giolito tosses gem for seven innings, Luzardo struggles in Oakland’s 6th straight playoff loss
OAKLAND » Not since New York Yankees’ Don Larsen in Game 5 of the 1956World 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 4-1 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 asmuch 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 post season 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 mid-90s 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 cornerswithnoouts. 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, thedeficitwas prettymuch insurmountable against a tough bullpen.
It didn’tmatter that comebacks have been a staple of the A’s success this season -and last. They have 16 comebackwins in 2020, including sixwalk-offs and six in extra innings. But in the postseason,
against good teams and pitchers, rallying isharder to achieve.
So, a shadowcontinues to followthe A’s in the postseason. Oakland extended its playoff losing streak to six games, tying a record the organization set between Oct. 10, 2006 andOct. 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 teamthat 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. Luzardogotahead0-2and 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 leftfield 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 theplate. Abreu, anALMVP 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 Imade a mistake. That’s not where I meant to put it.”
Leadoff hitter TimAnderson had been on base after collecting his second hit off Luzardo in a three-hit game. Engel’s double off the wall in
the fourth inning spelled the end of Luzardo’s first career postseason start and second appearance.
There were silver linings for theA’s left-handed rookie, a day shy of his 23rd birthday.
“He just centered some balls that they hit hard,” Melvinsaid. “Hehadprettygood stuff. He had five strikeouts he didn’t walk anybody.”
But it was more of the same for the A’s. In their last threepostseasongames, here are the stat lines for their starting pitchers:
Luzardo: 3 1/3 IP, 6 H, 3
ER, 2 HR
2019: Sean Manaea against Tampa Bay Rays, 2 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 2 HR
2018: Liam Hendricks against New York Yankees, 1 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 1 HR
The Chicago White Sox went 14- 0 against lefthanded starters. Anderson saidtheA’s clearly “didn’tdo their homework” when selecting left-handed Luzardo as their starter. Luzardo is no ordinary lefty, but the White Sox sluggers are no ordinary right-handed hitters.
Luzardo seems to have taken Anderson’s comment into account.
“I know there’s a lot of pessimism going around, but not in this clubhouse,” he said. “Whatever is said negatively about our team, we don’t let that get in our head. (Chris) Bassitt’s going to dominate tomorrow and our hitters are gonna hit. We’ll go to Game 3 and see what happens.”
If the A’s surviveWednesday, Melvin said today’s results could alter who they might start in a Game 3. Perhaps that means righthander Mike Fiers over leftie Sean Manaea. It couldmean FrankieMontas makes a brief appearance -
if he can after throwing 113 pitches Sunday.
The A’s bullpen is in good shape. J.B. Wendelken, back from a mysterious injury that had him on the IL, worked 2 2/3 scoreless innings. Yusmeiro Petit threw a shutout inning with one strikeout.
Joakim Soria allowed a Yasmani Grandal home run inthe eighth inning. At that point, more runs for the visiting team hit a numb spot.
Unlike their last three postseason losses, the A’s will get another try. They’ll have right-handed starter Bassitt on the mound Wednesday afternoon. But it doesn’t get any easierwith left-hander Dallas Keuchel, who has a 1.99 ERA this year, pitching for Chicago.
“We have good record off lefties as well,” Melvin said of the A’s 11-3 record against left-handed starters. “So hopefully that plays out for us.”
The A’s can only hope some of the solid contact they mustered against Giolitowill fall against Keuchel. La Stella didn’t seem overly concerned.
“They’re gonna fall eventually, it’s a game of probability,” he said. “We were on the wrong side of it today.”