Bullpen start is major failure
A’s plow through a record nine pitchers in loss to Mariners
OAKLAND >> The A’s first crack at their new “bullpenning” experiment turned out to be a failure.
Employing the same strategy the Tampa Bay Rays made famous earlier this season by having a relief pitcher start out a game did not go the way the A’s had it drawn up in Saturday’s 8-7 loss to the Mariners, decreasing their lead over Seattle for the second AL wild card spot to 4 1/2 games with 25 games remaining.
“We’ll always re-evaluate and see what we think is best,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said, also confirming Edwin Jackson would start the game today. “Obviously we didn’t get off to the greatest start with it.”
Instead of beginning the game with scheduled starter Daniel Mengden, the A’s (81-56) elected to open it up with reliever Liam Hendriks, who was among the the eight players called up Saturday with rosters eligible to expand for the month of September. Hendriks held the Mariners (7660) scoreless in the first but ran into trouble for the second.
Hendriks started off the inning by allowing the first two
batters to reach base, but bounced back to retire the next two. With left-handed hitting Ben Gamel coming up, Melvin decided to play the strategy matchup and bring in lefty Danny Coulombe. That did not work.
Coulombe surrendered a two-run double to Gamel and was quickly pulled for Emilio Pagan, who finally retired Mitch Haniger for the final out of the second.
In a perfect world for the A’s, Hendriks would have retired the first six batters of the game, allowing them to bring in Mengden for the third facing the bottom of the Mariners lineup and allowing him to go deeper in the game by avoiding the top half of the lineup one turn around to start of his outing. Instead, it took three pitchers to record the game’s first six outs.
Mengden came on to start the third, but he wasn’t much better.
With no help from his defense as the A’s committed two errors, Mengden was tagged for three runs in the third as he lasted just two innings and allowed four runs before the A’s carousel of pitchers continued. Though it was unlike anything Mengden has ever gone through in his career, having to warm up in the first and second innings of the game before actually entering, being the first test subject of the A’s experimental strategy was not an excuse.
“You gotta adjust to it. Something little like that shouldn’t be a big deal,” Mengden said. “It’s a little different but you have to be ready for anything and make adjustments on the fly.”
Should the A’s continue to employ the strategy going forward, Mengden said he’d be willing to do it again and. He believes judging its effectiveness based off one game is a “small sample size” and unfair.
“It’s different. It’s unique,” Mengden said. “Baseball is always into trying new things and if it helps the team win, it helps the team win,”
The A’s ended up using nine pitchers in the game, tying the most pitchers they’ve used in a single game in A’s history and the most ever for a game that lasted just nine innings.
The decision was made as a group effort by Melvin along with members of the
front office.
“With starters going down, we’re gonna have to use our bullpen. Maybe it keeps the starter off the top or middle part of the order one less time,” Melvin said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Despite the disastrous start that saw the Mariners score runs in four of the first five innings and build up an 8-1 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth, the resilient A’s almost mounted another epic comeback.
Chipping away since the fifth with a two-run homer by Mark Canha, the A’s really made it interesting in the eighth with four runs off Jesus Colome, including a three-run double by Marcus Semien and solo homer by Khris Davis. The homer by Davis was his 40th of the season, marking his third consecutive season reaching the mark. He joins Jimmie Foxx as the only two A’s players with three consecutive seasons of 40-plus home runs.
Not only is Davis joining elite A’s company, he joins elite baseball company. The list of players with at least three straight 40-plus homer seasons is full of legendary names identifiable by a strictly first or last name basis. Babe, A-Rod, Sosa, Griffey Jr, Bonds, Pujols, McGwire, Ortiz, Foxx, Banks, Kiner.
“Pretty amazing. He’s been stuck on 39 a bit. I think it happened the first year or two here. Now he’s passed it, and it’s just miraculous numbers he puts up,” Melvin said. “We’ve had a long history of power hitters here and to be with Jimmie Foxx and that kind of company and still close to a month left, he’s been as consistent of a power hitter there has ever been in Oakland.”
Davis said he doesn’t really care about the mark and is more concerned about helping the team win. But he did attribute some of his recent struggles at the plate, going 2 for 31 in his previous eight games, to being stuck at 39 home runs.
“It felt good to get it off my chest,” Davis said. “I was thinking about it for a while, but they come and go. You just gotta do your best to weather the storm.”
The rally was enough for the Mariners to bring in closer Edwin Diaz with two outs in the eighth. Diaz surrendered the double to Semien that brought the A’s within a run but settled down to record the final four outs of the game.