Oakland shows mettle in road trip with postseason feel
HOUSTON – Two of the best pitchers in baseball sandwiched the A’s threegame stop in Houston. And, despite a savory middle – the A’s late-inning comeback win in extra innings Tuesday – the series loss didn’t quite sit right.
The first bite resulted in a throw-away loss at the hands of Gerrit Cole. Wednesday’s crumbs, an unceremonious 4-2 loss on top of a Justin Verlander gem.
“Disappointing,” Wednesday’s starter Chris Bassitt said of the loss. “Because we didn’t come back to win the
Aseries. But on this stretch of schedule, we just can’t get down on ourselves. We just got to grind through it because it’s a gauntlet we’re going through.”
Now at the other end of the Minneapolis-houston road gauntlet, the A’s can take a moment to reflect. The team finished the trip 3-4, often just one swing away from victory — over the seven days, a probable comeback escaped plain sight just once, on Monday.
In the six other games, the A’s margin of victory never exceeded two runs, and the margin of loss didn’t exceed three. They came back twice, lost on a walk-off
once. There was an undeniable sense of urgency in both series; those four games at Target Field felt like a playoff series. These three days in Houston, a quick gauge of how the A’s might be able to poke the AL West leaders off their pedestal.
“This was a tough trip, now that look back at it, we went 3-4, which isn’t great, but 4-3 we would have considered really well,” manager Bob Melvin said. “So, we’re one win away from doing that and we had some close ones in Minnesota, and here we were one swing away from tying it up too.”
Verlander held the A’s to two hits and one unearned run.