Madson pays for misplaced fastball
ARLINGTON, Texas — It seems odd that a team well under .500 would have any sense of overconfidence against the best team in the division. The A’s had it Monday night, and it cost them.
One out away from pinning a loss on the American League West-leading Rangers, the A’s were stunned by Adrian Beltre’s second home run of the night, a first-pitch fastball right down the middle that the third baseman simply mauled to produce a 7-6 Texas win.
Instead of pulling closer to first place than they’d been in seven weeks, the A’s took a tumbling step backward. The A’s still have a share of the best record in baseball since the Alland
Star break at 7-4, but they’re back to 10 games under .500 at 45-55, 13 games behind the Rangers.
“I was going first-pitch fastball,” closer Ryan Madson said. “I was maybe too bullheaded and tried to beat him instead of putting it in a good spot. I’ve been beating guys with my heater the last week or so. I know I could beat him in(side) better, or maybe up.”
Instead it came right down the chute, and Beltre jumped on it as if Madson had sent a text that the pitch would be in the middle of the plate, belt-high.
“I know he’s a good fastball hitter,” Madson said. “I just got overconfident with my fastball.”
Where did that overconfidence come from? Maybe from a 7-3 record in the first 10 games after the All-Star break, a mark that had Oakland tied with Colorado for the best record, post-break. Maybe it came from Madson’s fastball; the reliever had allowed just two hits in five games since baseball resumed, all five of them A’s wins.
“I was beating a lot of guys with the heater since the break,” Madson said. “I wasn’t getting a lot of outs on it, but a lot of swings and misses. It’s one of those things that I didn’t get caught off-guard. I just got beat. He beat me.”
Monday’s was a beating the A’s didn’t have to take. They have been playing inspired baseball since the break. Even before the break, the A’s had a chance to sweep second-in-the-West Houston but had to settle for a split when the bullpen couldn’t hold leads in the ninth innings in Minute Maid Park. Only twice in the past 14 games have the A’s played games they weren’t in all the way.
That they were in this one was due to terrific twoout hitting. Danny Valencia had a two-run homer and two-out double to account for three of the A’s runs. Khris Davis and Billy Butler had two-out RBI doubles, and Josh Reddick had a two-out, run-scoring single.
Those six runs should have been enough to get the A’s home, but Oakland starter Daniel Mengden’s miserable July continued. He had leads of 2-0 and 5-1 but couldn’t make it through the fifth inning, needing Marc Rzepczynski to bail him out of a two-out, two-on jam in the fifth with the A’s lead down to a single run at 5-4.
Reddick’s RBI hit made it 6-4 in the seventh, but Beltre’s first homer — a John Axford curve ripped to the opposite field and barely fair — made it a one-run game heading into the ninth.
“Adrian Beltre is the one guy over there you say you can’t let him beat you,” Valencia said. “But he always finds a way. He’s one guy I’ve looked up to my whole life. There’s nothing he can’t do.”
On Monday, Beltre’s ninth career walk-off homer spelled that out all too clearly.
The A’s sent starter Jesse Hahn back to TripleA Nashville and brought up infielder/outfielder Max Muncy. Because the A’s are off Thursday and Monday, there wasn’t going to be a spot in the rotation for Hahn, who pitched 7.2 innings Sunday.
Rich Hill still hasn’t thrown a bullpen session, but the A’s are hoping they will be able to schedule one in the next few days as his blistered left middle finger continues to heal. After he gets on the mound, the club hopes he’ll be able to start on this road trip, if he doesn’t get traded, which remains a reasonable likelihood with the trade deadline Monday.
Center fielder Coco Crisp, who jarred his neck in a Saturday collision with the Coliseum wall, wasn’t in the lineup for a second day Monday. He did take batting practice from both sides of the plate and is likely to play Tuesday.
Liam Hendriks, who threw a 1-2-3 sixth, has been superb the past four weeks, allowing one earned run in 121⁄3 innings, a 0.71 ERA that has lowered his overall ERA almost two full points, from 6.75 to 4.76.
Reddick, who missed starts Saturday and Sunday with back pain, returned to the lineup Monday, basically pain free.
Catcher Stephen Vogt, who left the team over the weekend to deal with a family medical emergency, is expected to be back in the A’s lineup Tuesday.
Catcher Bruce Maxwell, who started his first game Sunday after making his MLB debut the night before, might well get sent down when Vogt returns. But before that happens, his college coach at Birmingham Southern, Jan Weisberg, drove from Alabama to see him Monday, although Maxwell wasn’t in the starting lineup. “When we’d have off days with Nashville, I’d drive down to see him,’’ Maxwell said. “We’ve always stayed pretty close.’’
For more on the A’s, see John Hickey’s Inside the A’s blog at ibabuzz. com/athletics. Follow him at twitter.com/JHickey3.