A’s avoid sweep by beating Giants 6-2.
Irvin pitches eight shutout innings as A’s avert series sweep by Giants
SAN FRANCISCO >> After a heartbreaking late-night loss in extra innings on Saturday, Cole Irvin had to get his A’s teammates ready for a quick turnaround on Sunday. For his start, Irvin brought in a box of donuts.
Running on donut fuel, the A’s put up six runs without recording an extra-base hit and Irvin took it from there in a 6-2 victory,
Irvin silenced the first 50win team in baseball, holding the Giants scoreless for eight innings. He allowed just three hits and struck out eight in joining Los Angeles Dodgers’ Walker Beuhler and Washington’s Joe Ross as the only pitchers to go eight innings against the Giants this year.
“I’m chasing a feeling like this all year, and that’s what we always do as starters,” Irvin said. “That feeling feels pretty good, now I want to go out and repeat it.”
Irvin (6-7) made some key adjustments between starts this week that helped his confidence and kept his gas tank full. He threw only 10 pitches in bullpen sessions this week and focused on getting a half-foot further down the mound in his motion. Irvin thrives with impeccable fastball command, and being able to stay on top of the ball sharpened his command even
more on Sunday.
While Irvin is typically aggressive in the zone, he tried not to paint corners as much and expanded the zone with his fastball, too. Against a Giants team that works long atbats in search of their preferred pitch, his ability to stay ahead in counts and expand the zone helped.
“I’ve looked at past video and realized I’m living in the zone too much,” Irvin said. “Not painting corners, but living too much, so I wanted to expand fastballs in fastball counts and pitches where I needed to. That’s another adjustment I looked into this week. Just one of those days where everything came together and I felt the past three, four outings I’ve been super close to a quality start like this.”
Efficient throughout, Irvin had thrown 78 pitches through seven scoreless. But a 22-pitch eighth inning in which he hit one batter and walked another caught up to him. Though the adrenaline was pumping after escaping unscathed at 100 pitches, Irvin’s legs wobbled when he sat back down in the
dugout. Manager Bob Melvin asked if he’d be up for the ninth, but Irvin had to be honest.
“As much as my mentality wants to go, I trust our bullpen and offense,” he said. “It was one inning, so I was pretty confident they’d get the job done, and they did. That was something I had to be honest with them. I didn’t want my adrenaline to get the better of me even if it might have paid off.” HELPING HIS OWN CAUSE >> A’s
assistant hitting coach Eric Martins had the A’s starting pitchers for this Giants series working the high velocity pitch machine, laying down bunts in preparation for a weekend of National League play.
Sean Manaea didn’t put the bunt work to use in his start on Friday, slicing a double and infield single.
Irvin, an experienced hitter from his time with the Philadelphia Phillies under thenmanager Gabe Kapler, laid down a safety squeeze to score one of the A’s three runs in the sixth inning.
“If I wasn’t bunting for it I would be swinging for the fences for it, for sure,” Irvin said.
HOW DID THE A’S SCORE? >> Losing the first two games by a collective three runs, the A’s put together six runs without recording an extra-base hit. With the blustering winds and marine layer, the A’s didn’t sit on their hinders for the perfect home run pitch. And it paid off.
“Sometimes it’s funky here,” Melvin said. “Looked like the ball wasn’t carrying early on, and sometimes you feel like you have to stay up the middle and string some hits together to put some pressure on the other team. If you sit back and try to hit home runs all the time when the wind is swirling, it doesn’t work that way.”
They got to Giants lefthanded starter Sammy Long early, before he could settle in with his curveball. Elvis Andrus and Matt Olson reached on a pair of hits and advanced into scoring position on a double steal. Matt Chapman singled them home, extending his hit streak to a career-best 15 games.
Long exited his start after hitting Chad Pinder with a pitch and walking Tony Kemp. But the A’s kept the line moving against reliever John Brebbia. Back against the team that drafted him, Aramis Garcia poked an RBI single the other way. Then Irvin helped his own cause with a successful safety squeeze, and Andrus added another run with a sacrifice fly to give the A’s a 5-0 lead. Garcia added on a run in his next at-bat.
THE SPICY NINTH >> Deolis Guerra took over in the ninth with a non-existent ERA against left-handed batters to face left-handed slugger Mike Yastrzemski, but he hit him with a pitch. After Buster Posey’s single off the all, Yastrzemski ended up scoring on Darin Ruf’s double play. Donovan Solano and Steven Duggar added a run with back-to-back doubles, knocking Guerra out of the game and forcing Melvin to go to Lou Trivino, who struck out Brandon Crawford to end the game.