All of the A’s ugliness highlighted in drubbing
CLEVELAND – There might be ways to play worse baseball than the A’s did in Thursday’s 8-0 loss to the Indians, but none come readily to mind.
In a season of low points, this was the lowest. The A’s made three errors and failed to make at least as many plays as that. They struck out 17 times less than 48 hours after a franchise record-tying 19 strikeouts. And they had three hits.
Manager Bob Melvin gathered the troops together after the game in an effort to get their minds right heading into a three time-zone flight home for a series against the Washington Nationals beginning Friday.
“That was important,” said third baseman Ryon Healy, who struck out three times and made two errors. “Especially when we are struggling, results wise. He put it in perspective that we have to stay the course and continue working hard.”
By the time he met with the media, Melvin had suppressed whatever anger he felt about this game. On a day with a different manager in a different clubhouse, there might have been screaming and tables and chairs being flipped over. Not so this time.
“I just told them that sometimes we try too hard,” Melvin said. “This is a group that works really hard. They are out for early work every day. They work on their problems. We are not making a lot of headway right now, but it’s not for a lack of work.”
If any player could put this one down in a personal “worst game” category other than Healy, it would have been Mark Canha. Getting just his second start in left field, he struck out four times, made an error and failed to make a throw that could have shortened a four- run sixth inning in which all the runs were unearned.
He accepts the Melvin “work too hard/try too hard” premise.
“The first ball hit out to me I felt I sat back too much and I wasn’t aggressive enough,” Canha said. “On the next one that’s hit out there, I try to be aggressive and the ball goes to the right of my glove. It just wasn’t our day. Bob told us to just keep our heads up.
“Everybody wants to do really well. There’s nobody that doesn’t. It’s easy when you aren’t playing well as a team to try a little extra hard. Sometimes it works, sometimes it hits the fan like it did today. You have to keep your mind right and stay positive.”
Starter Jharel Cotton took the loss, although you could make the argument that none of the five runs off him should have scored. Cleveland got one run in the third on a double, a passed ball and a wild pitch. The four in the sixth were by any measure ugly.
Among the high/lowlights: Healy’s failure to get an out at first on a Francisco Lindor bunt that wound up loading the bases. A basesloaded walk. A short fly between shortstop Adam Rosales and Canha that fell in, and Canha’s subsequent failure to get a force out at either second or third.
Then came the capper. Bradley Zimmer’s grounder to second resulted in an out at the plate, and on Josh Phegley’s throw to first to try and complete the double play, Zimmer was safe. Carlos Santana would take advantage of that to steam around third and was called out at the plate.
The A’s challenged the safe call at first base and the Indians challenged the out call at the plate. Double challenges are rare in the extreme, and the A’s couldn’t get either one. Both calls went Cleveland’s way, the Indians got a run and the inning was still alive at 4-0.
Oakland has lost seven n consecutive road series and is 8-20 on the road.
The A’s have made n 55 errors in their first 53 games, the worst total in the big leagues. Oakland has committed three errors in a game five times this season.
The A’s catch somen thing of a break this weekend with the suspension to Bryce Harper keeping the Nationals slugger out of the first two games of the Washington-Oakland series. The A’s do have a disadvantage in that they have to fly back from Cleveland while the Nationals had Thursday off after a series in San Francisco.