Baltimore marches in a hit parade
BALTIMORE — An already awful road trip grew more so Sunday for the A’s, who established an Oakland record for hits allowed and had first baseman Ike Davis pitching by the end of the day.
Baltimore crushed Oakland 18-2 on Sunday at Camden Yards, and the A’s are winless in the first six games of the trip from hell, plus a league-worst 51-68.
Asked about his team’s morale, A’s manager Bob Melvin said, “We’ve lost however many in a row and got beat pretty badly today. So it’s not good. But it’s our job to turn it around.”
“At some point, we’ve got to stop it, change it,” said reliever Dan Otero, who gave up eight runs. “Everyone has to look at themselves in the mirror and come back tomorrow and put forth our best effort.”
Melvin held a team meeting after the game. “We haven’t had too many of those, and you’re going to have some of those over the course of the season,” Melvin said. “Some of those end up exposing some things that need to be talked about.”
A’s pitchers allowed 26 hits, the most in franchise history since April 23, 1955. By the eighth inning, Davis — everyone’s favorite position player reliever — was in the game. He was the only A’s pitcher all day to retire Gerardo Parra.
Davis also walked Baltimore pitcher Jason Garcia, batting after a multitude of substitutions, on four pitches. “I tried to throw him strikes, I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know what
happened,” Davis said.
Davis gave up one hit, recorded a strikeout and worked his second scoreless inning of the season.
“You don’t want to see that too often, but if anyone has the ability to do that, it’s him,” Melvin said, adding of position players pitching, “It usually lightens up the mood a little — but after a tough game, maybe not so much today.”
The Orioles inflicted extensive damage, running their homer total in the series to 10. Starter Kendall Graveman, so good in June and early July, allowed six runs, including homers by Parra and Adam Jones.
“I take full responsibility for what happened today,” Graveman said. “I put guys in a bad position, coming out early.”
Otero, just back from Triple-A Nashville on Saturday, gave up eight runs in 11⁄3 innings. All of those came in a dreadful inning in which Oakland’s defense also wavered, most notably when shortstop Marcus Semien collided with left fielder Coco Crisp on a popup by Manny Machado that clearly was Crisp’s ball.
That should have been the third out of the inning. It fell in. Two runs scored. Melvin said that Crisp had called off Semien, but Semien couldn’t hear him.
Otero thought he’d made some good pitches, “but anytime you give up eight runs, you don’t feel good about it. … I felt we were going to come back if I’d kept (the score 6-2). And I just didn’t do that. I thought I let the rest of the bullpen down.”
Then Parra — who had five hits in the first six innings — doubled in Machado. Edward Mujica replaced Otero and gave up a homer to Jones, Jones’ second hit of the inning, second homer of the day. Caleb Joseph added a two-run homer off Mujica in the sixth. And Evan Scribner allowed a run in the seventh.
“It can get contagious on the other side when everyone’s getting hits and the line’s moving,” Melvin said.
Over his first seven starts, Graveman went 3-2 with a 5.56 ERA. Then Graveman had a six-start stretch in which he went 3-2 with a 1.26 ERA. In his past seven starts, the rookie is 0-5 with a 6.89 ERA.
“He’s a talented guy. We’ve seen what he can do,” Melvin said. “He’s just had some ups and downs this season and he’ll be better for it.”
The A’s runs came on a double by Sam Fuld in the second and a solo homer by Brett Lawrie in the fourth.