San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
‘Cruel’: A’s Trivino unable to earn save
The A’s were three outs from heading into Sunday with a chance to sweep. A chance for momentary Bay Area bragging rights. A chance to stay 21⁄2 games behind first-place Houston.
Then Lou Trivino threw a 94 mph fastball, and LaMonte Wade Jr. crushed it.
“The game of baseball,” Trivino said, “is cruel.”
On the verge of securing his second save in two days, Trivino coughed up a two-run homer to Wade that decided Saturday’s 6-5 loss to the Giants before another large crowd at the Coliseum, 36,230.
This was a rare experience for Trivino, who had converted 14 straight save chances. And owned an ERA of 0.67 in his previous 39 appearances. And surrendered just one homer in
Sha’Carri Richardson finished well off the pace in her return to competition.
his previous 44 outings.
A closer’s job is to move on from meltdowns, realize tomorrow’s a new day and approach the next assignment with the same zest and vigor as always.
Nevertheless, this one was tougher than most. Not only did it come in the stretch run of a playoff race, but it was in front of a mostly packed house and against the team across the bay.
“Not all losses are equal. That’s for sure,” Trivino said. “We needed to win that game. It sucks. Quite frankly, it sucks.
We had the lead most of the game. We were on a roll. It hurts a little more.”
The A’s built a 5-2 lead through four innings but stopped scoring, and the Giants made it 5-4 when Brandon Belt and Darin Ruf homered off Andrew Chafin in the seventh.
Jake Diekman escaped an eighth-inning jam, thanks largely to a couple of gift outs by the Giants, and Trivino got the ball in the ninth. He struck out Buster Posey but walked Belt, and then the left-handed Wade batted for Ruf.
It wasn’t a surprise move because lefties had hit Trivino a bit better (.241) than righties (.155).
“I wanted to throw it up,” Trivino said of his game plan on his 1-1 pitch to Wade. “You don’t want to throw lefties down and in. They tend to hit that well. Apparently, they also hit 94 up and in pretty well, too.”
Perhaps more stunning than Trivino’s inning was Chafin’s. The lefty, who was acquired before the July 30 trade deadline, had surrendered just one homer all season, and his first 10 A’s outings were scoreless. Furthermore, he had faced Belt
in 16 at-bats and got him out every time.
“It doesn’t matter how hard you work at the end of the day. It’s baseball,” Trivino said. “The other team, they’re good. They’re talented. Chafin’s been good for us. He’s been able to miss a lot of barrels and induce a lot of weak contact. It’s one of those days. It’s unfortunate that today was the day.”
Diekman benefited in the eighth from Giant mishaps. Brandon Crawford and Tommy La Stella opened with bloop singles, but Curt Casali tried to sacrifice and hit an easy popup caught by Diekman. Then Crawford left too early on a double-steal attempt and was an easy out after Diekman
threw to third.
Diekman struck out Austin Slater with a 96 mph fastball, but the good vibes didn’t carry into the ninth.
Not that it was on Trivino’s mind.
“I feel if your mind-set is, ‘Let’s just keep this ball in the park,’ you already lost the game,” Trivino said. “So I could give two craps (whether) or not they hit 8,000 home runs or one. At the end of the day, you’ve got a job, and the job is to get outs.”