A’s blow lead in 9th, fall to Rays
Oakland wastes early 5-1 lead to Tampa Bay
OAKLAND » The Athletics lost their fifth straight game Tuesday night, and this one stung more than those before it.
Mike Zunino hit a pinch tworun home run in the ninth inning against reliever Kirby Snead and the Tampa Bay Rays scored five times in the 10th to win 10-7 before what was left of a crowd of 2,815 at the Coliseum.
The Athletics, who led 5-1 after the first inning following a grand slam by Kevin Smith, fell to 1014, with Tampa Bay improving to 14-10.
The Athletics nursed a two-run lead into the ninth inning until Tampa Bay tied it against Snead on Zunino’s blast to left-center field.
Snead, who opened the ninth after predecessors A.J. Puk (two innings) and Dany Jimenez (one inning) had retired nine straight batters, got pinch-hitter Isaac
Paredes on a liner to right but gave up a single to Manuel Margot. Zunino, hitting for Kevin Kiermaier, connected on a 1-1 pitch to tie the game.
Taylor Walls singled and went to second on a grounder to first, with A’s manager Mark Kotsay bringing in Lou Trivino. Walls went to third on a wild pitch, but Trivino got Harold Ramirez on a grounder to short to end the inning.
In the 10th, Trivino (02) wasn’t so fortunate. Diaz drove in free runner Harold Ramirez with a single, Isaac Paredes bounced a single to left to bring in two more, Manuel Margot tripled in a run and Zunino drove in another with a single before Kotsay lifted Trivino in favor of Justin Grimm.
Trivino’s final line: twothirds of an inning, four hits, five runs, four earned runs, no walks, on strikeouts.
Before the game, Kotsay said he’d hoped to give Trivino a “soft-landing” in his first game back. The righthander had given up five runs in a one-inning Single-A start for Stockton in a rehab start when he was pitching simply to get work and not necessarily work to get hitters out.
In the bottom of the 10th, the A’s Sheldon Neuse doubled home free runner Cristian Pache and Sean Murphy singled in a run against Jason Adam to get within 10-7 before Seth Brown grounded out to end the game. Andrew Kittredge
(2-0) was the winning pitcher for the Rays.
A two-run home run by Brett Phillips in the second got Tampa Bay within 5-3, but Blackburn was not scored on in the third and fourth innings, giving way with one out in the fifth after a walk to Diaz. He was replaced by Zach Jackson, who, in a bit of good fortune, gave up a single to Wander Franco and a line-smash one-hop 6-4-3 double play started by Elvis Andrus. The ball, hit by Randy Arozarena, was timed at 106.7 miles per hour.
Looking for a big hit for the better part of the last two weeks, Smith delivered in a big way with his grand slam against starter Ryan Yarbrough.
The A’s had one run in after Yarbrough had walked both Stephen Piscotty and Christian Bethancourt. The walk to Bethancourt forced in a run, and Yarbrough was still near getting out of the inning. But Smith hit a 2-2 pitch over the left field fence for his first career slam and the A’s led 5-1.
The inning opened with an infield single by Chad Pinder, with Sheldon Neuse hitting a single to equal the A’s hit total in Monday night’s loss. Jed Lowrie’s line drive handcuffed left fielder Arozarenza, but he was able to recover and force Pinder at third for the first out. Yarbrough then got Sean Murphy on an infield fly before the walks to Piscotty and Bethancourt, setting the stage for Smith’s blast.
The Rays took a 1-0 lead against Blackburn on Brandon Lowe’s RBI double, which scored Franco.