San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bullpen blowup dooms Oakland
How can “here we go again” not be the prevailing attitude for the A’s as their relievers continue to struggle late in games?
Starting pitcher Cole Irvin had the bullpen’s back after Saturday’s 8-6 loss to Texas, though the bullpen didn’t exactly have his.
“I certainly don’t feel that way,” said Irvin, who handed over a 6-2 lead after seven innings. “We’ve got a pretty potent offense, so when we do get behind in certain games, I feel the seventh, eighth, ninth innings most of the season have been part of our game.”
Not so much lately. The bullpen has eight blown saves over the past 19 games, putting a big dent in Oakland’s playoff hopes, and the latest meltdown ended a three-game win streak and ruined a good day for the offense, which produced three home runs, and Irvin, who scattered six hits.
The four-run lead disappeared quickly as relievers Sergio Romo and Andrew Chafin were rocked
for five runs in the eighth. DJ Peters hit a two-run homer off Romo, and former Athletic Jonah Heim did the same off Chafin. In the ninth, Yusmeiro Petit gave up another homer, this one to Leody Taveras.
“We’ve got a lot of faith there,” Irvin said. “Chafin’s been good for us. Romo’s mentally and physically worked his tail off to fix things he had going early in the season.”
The previous three games, the bullpen was beginning to rebound, yielding one run in 101⁄3 innings. The nightmare returned Saturday, however.
“Shoot,” manager Bob Melvin said, “we had a lot of confidence in Romo and Chafin finishing off that game. It just didn’t happen.”
This ugly trend started Aug. 21 when Lou Trivino surrendered a two-run, ninth-inning homer to the Giants’ LaMonte Wade Jr., which decided a 6-5 Oakland loss. Up to that point, the A’s were 54-3 when leading after the seventh inning, and their bullpen had a 3.53 ERA, second lowest in the American League.
Since that season-swaying day at the Coliseum, the A’s have lost five times in the 19-game stretch when leading after the seventh inning. Over that time, the bullpen ERA has been 6.75.
One more: Before Aug. 21, the A’s were 38-2 when scoring at least six runs. Since then: 3-5. And the ERA in innings 7 through 9 ... a bulging 8.32. Ouch.
“We have guys here that are in those roles, and we’re confident in them,” Melvin said of his late-game relievers. “Unfortunately, we’ve had a rough stretch here and had another (rough) one today.”
The Rangers’ big rally started with Adolis Garcia’s oneout single, and Peters’ homer made it 6-4. Romo walked the next batter, Nathaniel Lowe, on four pitches, and one out later Yohel Pozo doubled home Lowe.
Chafin inherited a one-run lead and hung a slider to
Heim, and suddenly the A’s trailed 7-6. Melvin said the pitchers left too much over the middle of the plate and noted Chafin is “really good about burying his slider, and that might be the first one he’s hung all year for us.”
The 6-2 lead came courtesy of a three-homer attack featuring Starling Marte, Matt Olson and Mark Canha.
Marte hit a ball that seemed destined for the Treehouse, located in the middle deck on Mount Davis, but it was so high in the air that it landed midway up the lower deck, a
417-footer that gave the A’s momentum, at least until the fateful eighth.
Olson hit his 33rd homer to right field, and Canha hit his 17th to center.
“These are things that happen in baseball,” Marte said of Saturday’s turn of events. “You’ve got to play hard and hope things turn out your way.”