Sloppy defense factor in 6- 5 loss.
TWINS 6, A’S 5
MINNEAPOLIS — Sure, the A’s bullpen is a mess. Yes, the defense is surprisingly inept.
And still another nit wriggled in to pick Thursday: too many walks. With rainstorms fast approaching, Oakland starter Drew Pomeranz matched his career high with five and four of them led to runs in the A’s 6- 5 loss to the Twins.
“Instead of just going after guys and throwing strikes, I pretty much beat myself out there,” Pomeranz said. “You give up three hits and six runs, that should never happen.”
Oakland’s defense wouldn’t be denied a chance to help things unravel, either. With Marcus Semien getting his first day off of the season, Eric Sogard started at shortstop and Brett Lawrie at second base, their first starts of the season at those respective spots, and each made an error that led to an unearned run. The A’s defense had been expected to improve this season, but Oakland’s error total is up to a major- league- high 27, leading to a league- high 18 unearned runs.
“We work on it every day. We try to get guys ready for each position,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “Marcus has played every inning of every game, so ( a day off ) is something we had to do. I agree we should be better defensively. We have to continue to work to be better defensively, because it’s cost us games.”
The A’s dropped to 12- 18, matching their worst start after 30 games in the past 14 years; they also had the same record in 2009.
Oakland scored twice in the second, with Max Muncy and Josh Phegley providing sacrifice flies, but Pomeranz couldn’t turn in a shutdown inning and Minnesota came back with three runs: Kennys Vargas led off the inning with a single, and Pomeranz somehow managed to walk Eduardo Escobar — Escobar’s first walk of the season, and that’s including spring training.
Pomeranz also walked Kurt Suzuki to load the bases with no outs before Shane Peterson’s grounder to short, slow enough so the double play was pretty iffy, and Lawrie threw wildly past first. A second run scored on the error, then Eddie Rosario added a sacrifice fly to put the Twins up 3- 2.
Oakland answered with two runs in the third; Billy Butler contributed a two- out RBI single and Ike Davis an RBI double that got past Escobar in left.
Sogard then fumbled a grounder by Robinson in the fourth, putting two men on with two outs, and Rosario’s base hit sent in the tying run.
More walks sunk the A’s in the fifth. Pomeranz walked Brian Dozier to start the inning, and with one out, also put on Trevor Plouffe. Dan Otero replaced Pomeranz and ... walked Vargas.
“I’m pretty frustrated, because I came in and threw two pretty decent pitches to get ahead 0- 2 and was trying to get a groundball. I wasn’t making quality pitches at all,” Otero said. “They were way off the plate. … I don’t have a reason for it. It just wasn’t there.”
Escobar then singled to drive in two runs, the winning blow for Minnesota.
There was one bit of topnotch defense from Oakland, though; Billy Burns made a great racing, jumping grab at the wall in center to rob Dozier of extra bases in the third. And that seemed only fair; in the top of the inning, Dozier made fine, leaping stabs to steal hits from Sam Fuld and Josh Reddick on back- to- back plays.
Another constant in the A’s season of irritation: They’ve often been on the wrong end of replay challenges. They were hurt by another reversal Thursday, when Burns initially was declared safe on a missed tag at first and then called out on review.
Oakland’s overall record on replay, both as challenger and team on other end of challenge, is 5- 15 according to MLB’s log of replay results.