Division record may be how West was lost
To stay above the .500 mark — and maybe stave off any potential midseason sell-off — the A’s will have to figure out how to beat AL West teams.
After Tuesday night’s 6-3 loss, the A’s are 10-22 against teams in their division and 24-11 against everyone else. They’ve lost nine of their past 10 games against AL West foes.
“The fact of the matter is, our record outside the division is good and our record inside the division is not,” manager Bob Melvin said before the game. “Granted, we do have a good division and there are a lot of good teams in the division, but we have to play better.”
The A’s (34-33) entered the day with the seventh-best record in the league, but they’re in fourth place in the West.
“We’re all aware of it,” said A’s third baseman Matt Chapman, who tied an Oakland record with three doubles Tuesday. “We know how good our division is. There’s no easy night . ... Every game has been a battle. We’ve been in every game, we just have to find that late little push to be on top.”
Oakland is 1-6 against the defending champion Astros, and starter Daniel Mengden is the embodiment of the team’s struggles against Houston. He’s 0-5 with a 6.94 ERA against his hometown team, which is also the club that drafted him.
Carlos Correa started things with a solo homer off Mengden in the second, and Evan Gattis added a three-run homer that inning. Gattis provided a tworun double in the fifth. In 52 career games against Oakland, Gattis has driven in 45 runs.
Mengden, who had a 1.51 ERA in six starts in May, has allowed 12 runs in 82⁄3 innings in his two June starts. Tuesday, he walked a season-high four and struck out just one batter.
“Again, not very good,” Mengden said. “Four walks, it starts there. It comes down to not getting strike one, not executing.”
Chapman was hit on the left hand by a pitch from Collin McHugh in his final plate appearance, but he remained in the game and an X-ray showed no break; he said it stopped hurting by the time he was in the field the next inning and he should be OK to play Wednesday.
Chapman has 14 hits in his past 34 at-bats after working on being more direct to the ball, he said. “When I was scuffling a little bit, my swing was a little long,” he said.
Rookie Dustin Fowler, batting leadoff for the seventh time this season, singled to open the first and eventually scored on a wild pitch by Lance McCullers. Fowler is 11-for-30 in seven games batting leadoff.
Oakland also scored in the second, when Chapman hustled his way to a double, went to third on a groundout and scored on a sacrifice by Stephen Piscotty. The A’s added a run in the eighth on Mark Canha’s two-out bases-loaded single, but Piscotty struck out to end the inning. Oakland went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on.
The third-place Angels arrive Friday for three games after the Astros depart.