A’s: Solid start by Mengden, hot bats rout White Sox
The A’s got something Monday night they’d been sorely lacking: a long and effective outing from a starting pitcher not named Sean Manaea.
Daniel Mengden took a shutout into the ninth inning as the A’s beat the Chicago White Sox 8-1 at the Coliseum. On the heels of Manaea’s gem in Seattle on Sunday, it gave the A’s consecutive wins for the first time this season.
Mengden allowed six hits in eight-plus innings and held a Chicago lineup that had been idle since Thursday (because of weather) silent until Jose Abreu’s leadoff home run in the ninth. The right-hander struck out six, walked one and threw 106 pitches in his first career win at the Coliseum.
“It was a lot similar to what we saw at the end of last year,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Using all his pitches, pitching up, pitching down. All of his pitches were really good. It shouldn’t be a surprise to us now because we saw it a couple of times last year.”
Manaea had been the only A’s starter this season to get through the sixth inning, doing so three times. Other than Manaea and Andrew Triggs, Oakland starters entering Monday were 1-6 with an 8.63 ERA.
Mengden, meanwhile, entered the game 0-10 with a 6.45 ERA in 13 career starts in Oakland. He avoided tying the longest career-opening home losing streak (11) by an A’s pitcher since at least 1908, set by Bobby Hasty from 1919 through ’21.
“He was lights out today,” center fielder Mark Canha said. “There was some assertion behind everything he was doing. He was just going in there and challenging with that heater, both sides of the plate, and when a guy’s doing that it makes the breaking stuff so much better.”
Canha, making just his second start of the season in center, helped Mengden with several rangy catches. His diving catch of Jose Abreu’s sinking liner with a runner on third in the third inning preserved a thenscoreless game. Third baseman Matt Chapman also robbed Abreu in the sixth with a sliding play. Matt Davidson then hit a drive to deep center that Canha caught at the wall.
It was part of a stretch of 11 straight retired by Mengden, who credited an effective game plan with catcher Jonathan Lucroy. After attacking with his fastball the first time through, Mengden mixed in more firstpitch breaking balls in the middle innings. At 100 pitches entering the ninth, he sprinted to the mound for his warm-ups.
“Games like that are huge,” Melvin said. “When you’re constantly having to cover three innings, four innings, sometimes more, it’s difficult early in the season on your bullpen.”
Mengden outdueled hardthrowing Chicago right-hander Reynaldo Lopez, who struck out 10 batters in six innings. Matt Olson led off the fourth by hitting Lopez’s first pitch into the right-field seats for his third home run of the season. Khris Davis made it 2-0 with an RBI double off the center-field wall in the fifth, and the A’s piled on late, scoring six times in the seventh and eighth innings with the help of four Chicago errors.
The A’s bullpen should be relatively rested behind Trevor Cahill as the right-hander makes his season debut Tuesday.
Cahill’s start Tuesday will be his first since 2011 for the A’s, who drafted him out of high school in 2006. Melvin recalled that Cahill actually started the first game he managed for the A’s — on June 9, 2011, also against the White Sox.
“Back then, he was basically sinker-curveball,” Melvin said. “Now, he’s got a few more pitches in the arsenal. He’s pitched out of the bullpen, started. Since then, he’s kind of come full circle.”