Slumping Davis to sit against right-handers

OAKLAND >> Khris Davis, on an 0-for-15 skid to start the season, was not in the starting lineup for the A’s on Wednesday against the Colorado Rockies at the Coliseum, and his status as an everyday player might be over for the time being in this truncated 60-game season.

Ramón Laureano was the A’s designated hitter and hit second against the Rockies, who swept the series after Wednesday’s 5-1 win over the A’s. Stephen Piscotty returned to right field, Mark Canha played center and Robbie Grossman was in left.

Davis went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts in Tuesday’s8-3 loss, stranding seven runners. He popped out in the first inning with the bases loaded and struck out swinging with two runners on in the third.

A’s manager Bob Melvin said Wednesday that Davis’ volume of at-bats will be lightened in the coming days, putting him in the lineup more against left-handed starters.

“We’ll back off his workload a little bit, probably try to pick up matchups,” Melvin said. “We’ve got a lot of lefties coming up, and then get him back on again and back in the lineup.”

“KD wants to have success, so he puts a lot of pressure on himself,” A’s hitting coach Darren Bush said. “Just like anybody else, they want to have success and they want to help the team win. So the less success you have, the more pressure you put on yourself, because you want to be a part of it, you want to help the team win baseball games. KD’s no exception to that.”

Davis has struck out seven times this season in 17 plate appearances.

Bullpen runs out of luck in Tuesday’s loss

The A’s bullpen’s streak of near perfect pitching ended Tuesday.

As Chris Bassitt succinctly put it, the bullpen “has been nails.” Jason Castro’s save-blowing home run off Liam Hendriks on opening night was the only earned run against them. The bullpen was forced to pitch in 20.1 of the 37 total innings played heading into Tuesday’s game.

Melvin needed five innings out of Daniel Mengden to give the taxed bullpen a breather. But Mengden struggled early.

Though he allowed just a home run on a hanging curveball, he sputtered in the fourth inning having labored through 87 pitches. Melvin had one fresh arm at the end of the bullpen bench with the game tied 1-1 in the fifth.

Jordan Weems threw some heat in his big league debut, his fastball registering at 97 mph yielded a strikeout to Trevor Story. Then the game caught up to him. A miscommunication with Matt Chapman on Charlie Blackmon’s shallow grounder led to a two-run fifth inning for the Rockies.

Weems recovered, though, retiring the final eight batters he faced, including two more strikeouts.