San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bullpen troubles, short start add fuel to wild-card worries
Each day of this road trip lends evidence of a reeling A’s bullpen. Pitching changes come with precarity. There are only so many buttons to push. A six-run lead evaporated in the eighth inning Friday. Saturday’s task was to keep a late deficit close. More frustration followed in a 10-8 loss in Toronto.
The A’s trailed 4-3 in the seventh. Manager Bob Melvin summoned Jake Diekman to face a right-handed heart of the Blue Jays’ lineup. Righthanded hitters owned a .174 average against Diekman. Sergio Romo had pitched the previous two days, Yusmeiro Petit in three of four. Neither has Diekman’s power repertoire.
Runs scored by the A’s in the past two games against the Blue Jays,
both of which the A’s lost.
Consecutive games in which A’s pitchers have allowed at least
three home runs.
Games behind the Red Sox for the second wild-card spot.
Diekman walked Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to open the inning. Bo Bichette shot a firstpitch single through the right side. Teoscar Hernandez worked a 2-2 count. He fouled a 96 mph fastball, and Diekman tried another that arrived high. Hernandez turned on it anyway for a three-run homer. “We had a few guys down,” Melvin said. “And when Diek’s good, he’s just as good against righties as he is (against) lefties.”
Lou Trivino’s struggles as closer shook the A’s late-innings structure. His own role is in question. Trivino pitched Friday for the first time in a week in an eighth inning that turned disastrous. He entered with a four-run deficit in the eighth Saturday and could not finish the inning.
Trivino allowed a hit and a walk, hit two batters and exited with the bases loaded. Melvin said Trivino is “probably just pressing a little too
Kansas State 24, Stanford 7: The Cardinal’s use of two quarterbacks resulted in not much offense in the teams’ season opener.
Tide rolls on; No. 3 Clemson loses; San Jose State falls to USC.
much right now.” Lourdes Gurriel Jr. cleared the bases with a double off Burch Smith. The letdown loomed in the ninth.
Mark Canha hit a three-run homer off Joakim Soria. It prompted the Blue Jays to use closer Jordan Romano, who allowed a two-run homer to Sean Murphy. Five runs could not make up the shortfall. The A’s have lost two straight to a team right behind them in the wild-card race. They are four games behind Boston for the second wild-card spot. They have lost 13 of 19 with 26 regular-season games remaining.
“Absolutely there is,” utility player Chad Pinder said when asked about a sense of urgency. “There’s no denying that, especially at this point in the season. But as big as that weighs or as big as that is, you really do have to take it one game at a time, one day at a time. And try not to scoreboard watch and just take care of what you have to take care of.
“If you get caught up in all that and start looking ahead, you miss out on what’s right in front of you, and then you’re in trouble.”
Looking back also could hurt. The A’s are 2-3 on this trip despite their offense scoring 8.2 runs per game. Through Aug. 12, they were 37-1 when producing six runs or more. Since then, they are 3-5 in those games.
“It’s one of those stretches, and there’s been stretches where our staff is giving up one, two runs, and we can’t muster anything together,” Pinder said. “It’s just baseball. It is what it is. We’ve got to find a way to get the job done as a team and get back at it tomorrow.”
Starter Paul Blackburn did not finish the fourth inning and left trailing 4-0. His outing continued troubling trends for A’s pitching. Blackburn allowed nine hits, three of them home runs. Lourdes Gurriel and Danny Jansen hit solo home runs, and Breyvic Valera lined a two-run shot.
“Command-wise I’ve got to be better,” Blackburn said. “I just felt like my command was really sporadic throughout the outing today. That’s a good team over there, and if you can’t command the baseball, you’re going to run into some trouble. Bottom line, I just need to be better.”
A’s pitchers have allowed at least three home runs in five straight games — the longest such stretch in franchise history, the team said. Their starters have worked five or fewer innings in 13 of their past 21 games, pressing an embattled bullpen into more action. Allowing 15 runs in the first two games of this series, A’s relievers own a 7.58 ERA in their past 13 games.
Daulton Jefferies replaced Blackburn and provided 21⁄3 scoreless innings. Toronto starter José Berríos held the A’s hitless for four innings before Matt Chapman led off the fifth with his 10th home run in the past 21 games. Matt Olson doubled in the seventh and scored on a Canha single, chasing Berríos. Pinder added an RBI single against Adam Cimber (USF) that cut the A’s deficit to 4-3.