Arizona’s 6-game win streak ends with defeat in Oakland

Two innings into his outing on Wednesday night, Diamondbacks righthander Merrill Kelly looked up to see his pitch count at Oakland Coliseum. It was nearly 50. He knew his night was not going as planned, but he did not want a shaky start to turn into a disastrous one.

So, from Kelly’s perspective, there was at least one small positive to take from the Diamondbacks’ 4-1 loss to the Oakland Athletics. He managed to grind through five innings, keeping his team within striking distance on a night when was not at his best.

The Diamondbacks’ six-game win streak came to an end at the hands of Athletics rookie Jesus Luzardo, who tossed 6 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out seven, in what was the best start of his young career. Athletics pitchers held the Diamondbacks’ offense, which had been averaging nearly seven runs per game over the past two weeks, to just six singles.

Both Kelly and the offense probably were due for a rough night. Kelly had turned in four consecutive sharp outings to open the year; his 1.71 ERA entering the night was the best in the club’s starting rotation and ranked third in the NL.

He had been thriving, in part, because of his aggressiveness, a willingness to go after opposing hitters. He wasn’t as effective in that sense on Wednesday, though he described it more as an inability to do so rather than a shift in mentality.

“The overall feeling I had today, it wasn’t as sharp mentally, physically,” he said. “You’re going to have those days throughout the season. Some days, you’re not going to feel on point; today was one of those days.”

The A’s wasted no time capitalizing. With one on and one out in the first, Kelly got to two strikes on Athletics slugger

Matt Chapman but couldn’t put him away. Chapman worked a walk. Kelly tried to go inside with an 0-1 fastball on the next batter, Mark Canha, but the pitch took off, clipping Canha on the arm. Robbie Grossman followed by lining an 0-1 change-up into the right-field corner for a two-run double.

“I definitely got to hand it to those guys,” Kelly said. “They definitely had some professional at-bats. I think they recognized that I wasn’t as sharp as I have been. I think they made that adjustment. They were going to make me throw strikes.”

In the third, Chapman laced a oneout double to left and Canha followed by driving a 2-2 fastball out to left for a tworun homer. That made it 4-0, but with the way Luzardo was throwing it felt like a more significant deficit.