Angels 8, A’s 5: Sean Manaea leaves game after 34 pitches.
ANAHEIM — Just as the A’s are about to get their top two starters off the disabled list, their No. 3 starter might be headed onto it.
Left-hander Sean Manaea came out of the A’s 8-5 loss to the Angels on Wednesday night after just two innings and 34 pitches, his velocity down several miles per hour. The team announced that he left because of shoulder tightness, which is the same issue that cost Opening Night starter Kendall Graveman the better part of the past two weeks.
Manaea and manager Bob Melvin downplayed the injury after the game and said there are no immediate plans to get Manaea an MRI exam. The team will wait to see how he feels Thursday. Manaea didn’t believe he would miss his next start, saying, “As of right now, no. We’ll just play it day by day.”
Manaea said he felt tightness while warming up in the bullpen and thought it would just take him longer to get loose, but he never did. “It was kind of a little sharp pain, nothing serious. I’ve dealt with it before and it only took me a few days to get back on the mound,” he said. “I’m not really worried about it.”
Manaea’s fastball usually registers in the 93 to 95 mph range. Wednesday, his velocity was no higher than 90 mph and he hit that only a handful of times. “It didn’t make any sense to make him keep pitching,” Melvin said, adding later, “The velo was down from the very start of the game, 88-89, and that’s not who he is.”
Manaea said he had a similar problem during spring training in 2014 and he was held back only a couple of days.
Graveman is scheduled to come off the DL to start at Anaheim on Thursday, and Sonny Gray, who has been out since early March with a lat muscle strain, is expected back next week at Minnesota.
“It seems like kind of a revolving door right now,” Melvin said of the DL. “But it will certainly be nice to get Kendall back and to get Sonny back soon, and hopefully this isn’t a long-term problem with Sean.”
Manaea’s outing Wednesday was his shortest in the big leagues. He allowed four hits and three runs, all in the second.
The A’s scored first, putting up two runs in the first inning on a two-out double by Yonder Alonso that scored Jed Lowrie and Khris Davis. Alonso also crushed a solo homer in the fifth, his fourth home run of the season. He didn’t hit his fourth homer last year until July 8.
That homer cut the Angels’ lead to one, but the Angels roared back with four runs in the seventh, helped by some Oakland mistakes. After Ryan Dull gave up a single and walk and hit a batter, Cameron Maybin’s bases-loaded single scored two. Then Stephen Vogt made the A’s first error in seven games, failing to hang on to a glove-toss from Dull that would have erased a runner at the plate after a bunt by Martin Maldonado.
Cesar Valdez, who made his first big-league appearance in nearly seven years last week, took over for Dull with two outs and two on and got Mike Trout to ground out.
Though that was the A’s only error, Melvin was displeased with some poor outfield play that allowed Angels baserunners to take extra bases.
Oakland, which dropped back under .500 at 10-11, has lost eight of its past nine games at Angel Stadium.