Eight is not enough for A’s
Big fourth inning goes to waste as Angels take lead on grand slam
ANAHEIM >> After two days’ worth of pent-up frustration, the A’s offense unleashed all of its anger on Angels pitcher Parker Bridwell. The A’s led big early and were finally starting to feel good about themselves again, but it was soon coughed up by their bullpen.
After Kendall Graveman made what was at one point an 8-3 lead stick for five innings despite allowing five runs, his bullpen collapsed in the seventh by allowing five runs, including a grand slam by Cliff Pennington. The A’s were swept out of Anaheim with Wednesday’s 10-8 loss to the Los Angeles Angels in the finale of a three-game series.
Although Chris Hatcher gave up the go-ahead slam, the demise began well before he entered the game.
After striking out Ben Revere to begin the seventh, Ryan Dull allowed the next two runners to reach base. Daniel Coulombe was then summoned by A’s manager Bob Melvin, and he allowed a single to Kole Calhoun that cut the
A’s lead to 8-6.
Hatcher nearly escaped the danger by striking out C.J. Cron for the second out of the inning, but he walked Luis Valbuena to load the bases before serving up the disastrous blow.
The meltdown overshadowed the offensive breakout the A’s had been in search of. The Athletics exploded for an eight-run fourth inning, seven of those coming against Bridwell, to set a season-high for most runs in an inning
Combining to go 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position over the first two games of the series, the A’s were finally able to frequently find that elusive clutch hit in the finale.
Jed Lowrie and Khris Davis led off the fourth with back-to-back walks to put runners on first and second with no outs. A situation the A’s often found themselves in the past two nights but failed to deliver in, Matt Joyce made sure to change that narrative. Joyce doubled to the wall in left-center to bring home Lowrie and give the A’s their first run of the series with a runner in scoring position. The double seemed to start a chain reaction as the line just kept on moving from there.
Ryon Healy followed up Joyce with a single to right that scored Davis and then rookie Matt Olson blasted a three-run bomb to center that put the A’s ahead 5-3. Olson’s 11th home run of the season was his second in as many days.
Fellow rookie Matt Chapman followed Olson with a walk to set up a two-run blast by another rookie in Bruce Maxwell that traveled over the short wall in right to break the game open 7-3.
Oakland added on one more run in the inning after batting around on Lowrie’s RBI single that brought home Marcus Semien.
The A’s consider pitcher Kendall Graveman their ace. He’s the guy the A’s want to be able to lean on in order to stop a losing streak and get the club back on track. It’s a quality that would be extremely valuable next season when the A’s hope to be back in playoff contention. The A’s are not quite on that level yet, and neither is Graveman.
Like most pitchers, Graveman struggled with Angels star Mike Trout. After sitting out the first two games with neck stiffness, Trout immediately made his presence felt with with a solo shot off Graveman to straight-away center in the first to dig the A’s in an early 1-0 deficit.
Graveman also surrendered two big homers to slugger Albert Pujols. Both were two-run homers, with the second coming in the fifth to shrink the A’s lead to three. With the Angels threatening for more with a runner on second after the home run in the fifth, Graveman was able regroup by striking out Luis Valbuena to limit the damage and preserve the lead.
The 26-year-old righthander gave the A’s five innings, allowing five runs with all of those coming on home runs.