San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A’s: Luzardo, newcomers impress in latest victory
Assured of a postseason spot, the A’s are focused on the division title — and they took a big step toward that Saturday at the Coliseum, trimming their magic number to 1.
After a 60 win over the Giants that featured a tworun homer by new third baseman Jake Lamb, and a tworun triple by new second baseman Tommy La Stella, Oakland needs one win or a Houston loss to clinch the division after the Astros defeating Arizona 32 on Saturday night.
“It’s probably better to go out and win (Sunday), not count on other people’s losses,” said A’s starter
Jesús Luzardo, who worked six scoreless innings against the Giants. “Either way — if we clinch the AL West, that’s part of our goal this year when we started. And we have more goals we need to get to.”
“We’re going to continue to take care of our business regardless,” first baseman Matt Olson said. “Games do still matter, and we want to have some momentum going into the playoffs.”
Once the AL West is wrapped up, manager Bob Melvin can start preparing for the postseason. He might rest some regulars and try to get bench players some action — or maybe get some rust off bats, particularly platoon DH Khris Davis, who has played once in the past week.
“Yeah, you always kind of look at it as who needs some time off before, but there are other guys that need some atbats, too,” Melvin said, mentioning Davis in particular. “You have to try to get everybody in the right frame of mind and hopefully get them the right amount of atbats so they can be productive.”
The A’s also can start trying to line up their rotation, though the opponent will be a factor if known far enough ahead of time to maneuver things. Luzardo was the latest man to make a strong pitch for a firstround series, allowing five hits and striking out seven Saturday while unveiling a slider with a new grip that proved effective and was 8889 mph (45 mph more than his norm).
“I just gripped it and said, ‘I’m going to throw this with conviction,’ and it worked,” Luzardo said.
Before Saturday’s game, shortstop Marcus Semien noted that the offense has struggled to score at times, leaving more runners on base than the A’s would like. But Oakland got few baserunners, period, against Giants starter Kevin Gausman and managed to make it work. Gausman retired the first 11 batters he faced before walking Mark Canha with two outs in the fourth, and Canha had the presence of mind to zip to second on a ball in the dirt. Olson followed with a single up the middle to score Canha.
Lamb, a lefthanded hitter, smacked a tworun shot off lefty Sam Selman in the seventh and now has hits in all five games he’s played in since joining Oakland as a free agent Monday. La Stella added his tworun triple off the centerfield wall to extend his hitting streak to eight games, and Darin Ruf misplayed a flyball by Semien into an RBI double.
Defensively, Olson turned in a particularly alert play, even for him. In the fourth, the Giants had runners at the corners with two outs when Mauricio Dubón hit a bouncer to short. Semien doubleclutched slightly and his throw to first was too late, but Donovan Solano took too big a turn around third and Olson — who said he started eyeing Solano as soon as he saw Semien have trouble getting a grip — pounced.
The twotime Gold Glove winner smoothly fired to Lamb, who put down the tag to end the inning.
“He’s the best defensively I’ve ever seen,” Melvin said of Olson.
“Saved that inning and might have saved me a run at the end of the day,” Luzardo said. “Those are the kind of plays we expect from Olson, but you should never expect a play like that.”
Jake Diekman worked a 123 seventh and is unscored upon this season in 18 appearances and 181⁄3 innings; the only player in history to have more innings in a season without allowing a run was Cleveland’s Tyler Olson, with 20 in 2017. Joakim Soria worked a perfect eighth and Lou Trivino pitched the ninth and took a searing line drive by Ruf — the hardest hit ball of the day, at 111 mph — off his upper leg but stayed in.
The infield will be finetuning things in the final eight games after welcoming Lamb, following Matt Chapman’s seasonending hip surgery, and adding La Stella last month. “When we have Chapman, you just play straight up and play ball and go get it. But Lamb’s no slouch. Lamb can really play. He’s got an accurate arm, he can move, he’s a great athlete. So that’s not taking anything away from him.”