Road home-run record nice, but rout isn’t
CHICAGO — The Away-A’s are so powerful, they now own a major-league record. That only went so far, however, in a Sunday finale dominated by the White Sox.
On Sunday, Mark Canha’s solo drive in the fifth inning extended Oakland’s streak of consecutive road games with a homer to 25, topping Baltimore’s modern record set in 1996. Chicago then stormed back with five runs in the bottom of the inning and wound up beating Oakland 10-3 to split the four-game series.
“It’s pretty cool to be in the history books, but obviously, you’d like the win,” Canha said. “You’d like it to go toward something positive, but especially for a young group of guys like us, to have those bragging rights, that’s kind of cool.
“We can keep it going. Let’s add four more onto there in Detroit.”
A’s starter Paul Blackburn allowed only an infield single through the first four innings, but Chicago collected six hits in the fifth; had Jonathan Lucroy not thrown out Tim Anderson trying to steal second, the inning might have been worse. As it was, all the damage came with two outs. Yoan Moncada provided the biggest blow, a three-run double, and Avisail Garcia and Jose Abreu added RBI singles, but hitting No. 9 hitter Adam Engel to load the bases was where things really started to go wrong. “It all went downhill from there,” Blackburn said.
“That kind of opened up the floodgates,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Just seemed like a different guy after that.”
With Oakland’s bullpen working seven innings the day before, Blackburn came back out for the sixth. But when Daniel Palka started things off with a homer, Liam Hendriks took over. Two batters later, Yolmer Sanchez took Hendriks deep. Four batters after that, Moncada hit a three-run shot.
Blackburn was making just his fourth start since coming off the disabled list, and he had only one rehab outing before returning June 7 because A’s starters Brett Anderson, Andrew Triggs, Daniel Gossett, Trevor Cahill and Jharel Cotton are all out with injuries. Top prospect A.J. Puk, like Cotton, had season-ending Tommy John surgery, and Daniel Mengden might join the list later this week after leaving Saturday’s game with a sprained foot after two innings.
“It’s just kind of where we are,” manager Bob Melvin said of Blackburn getting thrown right into action. “We really don’t have any choice right now.”
Blackburn has thrown more than 73 pitches just once so far, but he said he feels strong. “I’ve just got to put it all together,” he said.
“I’m trying to get his pitch count up,” Melvin said. “That’s one of the reasons I sent him back out, we’re trying to get him to 90 pitches so we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Blackburn’s stamina is about where it would be coming out of spring training, and his results are erratic. His first time back, he worked six innings and allowed three hits and a run in a win over Kansas City. His next time out, he gave up eight runs in 11⁄3 innings. Tuesday in San Diego, he allowed two runs in five innings.
Hendriks allowed four runs in his inning of work, putting his ERA at 7.36 and making him potentially expendable when the A’s make a roster move Monday.
Oakland did strike first Sunday; Matt Olson singled and Stephen Piscotty doubled in the second to set up Canha’s sacrifice fly. The A’s added a final run when Khris Davis scored on a wild pitch with two outs in the ninth.
After Canha’s homer in the fifth, the A’s had men at second and third with no outs and the top of the order coming up, but Carlos Rodon made quick work of Marcus Semien, Chad Pinder and Jed Lowrie.