A’s: Rough road trip ends with shutout loss at Seattle
SEATTLE — Oakland went into this road trip on a high note, having won four of five, then went straight into the dumpster.
The A’s lost five of six at Texas and Seattle, including Wednesday’s meek 4-0 loss to the Mariners, and the team is in last place in the division after finishing a section of the schedule made up almost entirely of AL West opponents.
“Obviously, it’s disappointing. It’s really frustrating,” right fielder Matt Joyce said. “I think as a group we know we can play a lot better. We just have to find a way to do it.”
The A’s recorded just two hits off Christian Bergman in his 71⁄3 innings. Bergman, who had a career ERA of 5.40 entering the night, is one of the many fill-in starters for Seattle’s injury-riddled rotation.
“Offensively, I don’t know that we’ve looked much worse,” manager Bob Melvin said of his team, which struck out 12 times and didn’t advance a man past first.
And then Oakland lost top RBI man Yonder Alonso to left knee soreness in the seventh. Alonso’s foot got stuck on the plate when he was swinging the bat in the fifth and it stiffened on him in the field.
“I don’t think it’s anything serious,” Alonso said. Melvin said Alonso will be evaluated Thursday.
In every game on the road trip, Oakland made at least one mistake or mental error in the field, including two misplays in the outfield Wednesday that led to runs, and the bullpen was universally unreliable until Wednesday, the first time in six games A’s relievers didn’t allow at least one run.
Jesse Hahn was not helped much by the A’s outfield play. In the first inning, Ben Gamel hit a line drive to right that looked like no more than a single, but the ball skipped under Joyce’s glove and Gamel wound up at third with a triple.
“Off the bat, I thought I had a chance at catching it, but the ball had a lot of topspin and I got caught in between,” Joyce said. “I tried to keep it in front, but it stayed down on the hop, didn’t come up as much as I thought it would.”
Nelson Cruz sent home Gamel with a sacrifice fly.
In the fifth, Hahn walked former A’s prospect Boog Powell and Guillermo Heredia followed with a base hit. Tuffy Gosewisch advanced them with a sacrifice bunt and Jean Segura, who’d struck out in each of his first two at-bats, poked a single up the middle, scoring both.
Gamel then hit a high flyball to left-center and Mark Canha, playing center for just the second time, raced a long way and appeared to call off Khris Davis, who was in a much better position to make the catch. The ball went in and out of Canha’s glove, and the error put men at second and third. Segura scored on a groundout by Cruz.
“Mark’s trying to be aggressive in a position he hasn’t played a whole lot,” Melvin said. “He went a long way to get it, but sometimes it takes some time to figure out where your territory is.”
The misplays also helped drive up Hahn’s pitch count to 103 through five innings, so that was it for him. Three of the four runs off Hahn were earned, and he has yet to allow more than three earned runs in an appearance this season.
Oakland’s bullpen allowed 14 earned runs in the first five games of the trip, but Bobby Wahl (one inning) and Josh Smith (two innings) did not give up a run Wednesday.
The good news for the A’s is that they are returning home, where they’re 11-8 and have won four of six series and went 2-2 in another. They’re 6-15 on the road and have lost six of seven series.