San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Split: A’s fall in opener, romp in second game.
On an emotional day in which the A’s lost one of their best players to a seasonending injury, the team dropped the first game of a doubleheader and another player was scratched before the second, Oakland bounced back with a romp at Texas.
The early news Saturday wasn’t good: Matt Chapman will have surgery Monday for a torn hip labrum. Then Daulton Jefferies, who played at Cal, allowed five runs in the first inning of his bigleague debut in Game 1. Then Chad Pinder, one of Chapman’s backups, was scratched from Game 2 with a hamstring strain.
No matter: The A’s cruised to a 101 victory over the Rangers to split the doubleheader and hold a 61⁄2game lead in the AL West, with secondplace Houston rallying to beat the Dodgers 75 on Saturday evening.
“We’ve just got to keep playing,” shortstop Marcus Semien said. “We knew this year would be tough with injuries, and this is a tough part of the schedule, but we’ve got the depth in the organization and it seems like people are stepping up when they need to, so we’ll be OK.”
Oakland sent 13 men to the plate in the second inning of Game 2, a 40minute halfinning in which the A’s first eight batters reached base, with seven of them scoring. Oakland is now 90 in games started by opposing lefthanders.
Even more astonishing: The A’s were on the right side of a replay review that inning, on their very first run. Matt Olson — called out on a similar play at the plate against the Padres eight days earlier — was found to have sneaked his foot in ahead of the tag while trying to score from second on Ramón Laureano’s base hit to right. The A’s had lost four of the previous five replay challenges over the past week.
On what was an excellent day for Oakland’s rookie catchers, Sean Murphy followed with a tworun single off Kolby Allard, and after Vimael Machin walked, Semien delievered an RBI single. Tommy La Stella did the same off Taylor Hearn, just into the game, then Olson and Khris Davis drew basesloaded walks — Davis’ walk his second of the inning. Semien added a threerun homer in the fifth, and he played in both games, an important step after missing more than a week with a ribcage injury.
Starter Chris Bassitt had to sit through the lengthy inning but he didn’t cool off too much, with a scoreless inning. The Rangers didn’t get on the board until the sixth, when Joey Gallo hit a homer off Bassitt.
“Sitting there was definitely not fun, I don’t know how many times I had to throw in the cage,” Bassitt said of the outburst in the second. “But I won’t ever complain about that many runs.”
With Pinder’s injury coming on the heels of Chapman’s, Oakland might consider bringing up another infielder, such as Nate Orf or Sheldon Neuse, or consider signing one of several recently released infielders, such as Jake Lamb, Neil Walker or Jordy Mercer. Machin started at third when Pinder was scratched, and La Stella also can play the position.
In the opener, Jefferies, who had not pitched above the DoubleA level, appeared a little overamped in the first, walking two batters, something he seldom does. Things went downhill from there, as the former Cal player allowed two homers in the A’s 52 loss. Rougned Odor smacked a threerun homer and Ronald Guzman added a tworun shot off Jefferies, who’d walked just 12 men in 992⁄3 minorleague innings.
A’s manager Bob Melvin said he presumes nerves played a role “based on the fact he walked some guys, and he never walks anybody,” and he noted that both homers came on changeups — which, if Jefferies had some extra adrenaline going, probably were thrown harder than usual.
According to stats expert David Feldman, Jefferies’ debut was the shortest by an Oakland starter (Marcus Jones, went 21⁄3 innings on July 17, 2000, at Colorado).
Reliever Jordan Weems retired all nine batters he faced, striking out five of them. That was key for a team that is playing 10 games in seven days, including five in this threeday span. “That was terrific, we needed that,” Melvin said. “Jordan saved us.”
Oakland scored in the third when Machin doubled and another rookie, catcher Jonah Heim, singled him in. In the sixth, Olson doubled in La Stella. Heim had two of the A’s four hits.