San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Poor pitching, weak offense prove costly
ARLINGTON, Texas — A very long day and night at the ballpark ended in utter frustration for the A’s, who dropped both ends of a doubleheader thanks to poor pitching in the first affair and minimal offense in the second.
Paul Blackburn and Ryan Dull combined to allow doubledigit runs in the first five innings in a 10-5 loss to the Rangers in the opener. In the second game, Oakland fell 3-1, with the team’s run coming on a homer by Mark Canha.
The A’s also lost catcher Nick Hundley to back spasms in the first game; he was placed on the injured list before Game 2 and Beau Taylor flew in from Triple-A Las Vegas to take his roster spot.
In the nightcap, Oakland managed just four hits off Adrian Sampson, and with the exception of Canha’s drive out to left in the fourth, they had only one other runner get past first base. Sampson struck out seven and walked one in pitching his first complete game and earning his fifth consecutive victory.
“He just kept us off balance,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin, whose team is playing four games in 48 hours after arriving at 6 a.m. Friday. “I don’t know if we’re dragging a little bit — it would be nice to get some sleep at some point, but that’s no excuse.”
Oakland starter Chris Bassitt worked into the sixth inning and allowed three runs in Game 2, the ninth time in his 10 starts he’s given up no more than three runs. He didn’t allow a hit until the fifth, when Danny Santana, Ronald Guzmán and Jeff Mathis had consecutive singles, with Mathis’ driving in a run.
Delino DeShields added a sacrifice fly to put the Rangers ahead, and in the sixth, Bassitt walked Rougned Odor with two outs and Santana hit a triple to center that Ramón Laureano nearly hauled in; he was there in time but missed it. “I timed it perfectly, I just didn’t catch it,” Laureano said. “I’ve got to make that play. Trying isn’t enough.”
“I couldn’t really see it,” Melvin said, “but you think if it stays in the ballpark, Laureano has a shot at anything.”
Blackburn was called up from Las Vegas to start the first game as the 26th player and his day did not go smoothly. He allowed three runs in the first, one on a sacrifice fly by Nomar Mazara and two on a base hit by Asdrubal Cabrera. In the third, Elvis Andrus rapped a leadoff single and Mazara followed with a two-run homer. Blackburn left after three innings — not ideal on a day with two games — having thrown 87 pitches.
“He was up in the zone, threw a lot of pitches and they hit him hard,” Melvin said. “He just couldn’t get into a rhythm and threw a lot of pitches, almost an uncomfortable amount of pitches, in three innings.”
“I felt like I got to two strikes more often than I have in the past but just didn’t have a feel for my off-speed stuff,” Blackburn said. “I couldn’t put guys away.”
Dull, called up Thursday, had an even rougher time of it. He walked Shin-Soo Choo to open the fourth and Andrus drove him in with a double. In the fifth, Dull allowed a single, a walk and a three-run homer by No. 9 hitter Tim Federowicz, his first homer of the season. Five runs in two innings, and Dull’s ERA stood at 12.00, making him a strong candidate to be sent down in favor of an extra arm.
“When he’s hitting the outside corner with his fastball and extending with his slider, he tends to be really good,” Melvin said. “He just had a little trouble locating.”
Catcher Josh Phegley said after Dull’s outing that maybe he should have called more fastballs to keep the Rangers off his slider. “They were expecting it, maybe sitting soft on it,” he said.
Aaron Brooks, who’d worked just once in the previous three weeks, took over in the sixth and went three scoreless innings, likely taking him out of consideration for Monday’s start at Tampa Bay, which could wind up being a bullpen game. “We’re still kind of deciding on that one,” Melvin said.
Brooks might have put himself into contention for the fifth starter spot beyond Monday, however. Melvin called Brooks’ outing “impressive,” especially considering his lack of work recently. “It looked like the stuff he had when he was pitching well,” Melvin said.
All of Oakland’s runs off left-hander Joe Palumbo, who was making his big-league debut, came in the fourth. Matt Olson hit a two-run homer, and after Hundley left in the middle of his at-bat, Phegley took over and banged the first pitch he got to left for a two-run double.
Phegley added a solo homer in the seventh off lefty Jeffrey Springs.
Third baseman Matt Chapman, hitless in his past 14 atbats and with five strikeouts in the past two games, was not in the starting lineup for the second game, and right fielder Stephen Piscotty, 0 for his past 9, also got the start off.