3 solo homers back Gossett’s strong start
NEW YORK — With youth come mistakes, and the A’s made their share Sunday.
Homers made up for it, though, in Oakland’s 3-2 win over the Mets, and Matt Chapman was on both sides of the equation. The rookie was picked off third in the fifth inning, and in his next at-bat, he drilled a home run to left to give the A’s the lead for good as they salvaged the final game of the three-game series.
Chapman, who came up in June, has homered in back-to-back games, doubling his majorleague total through his first 20 games.
“I don’t know that he hit the one today too terribly well, either. I think he got it off the end a little bit,” manager Bob Melvin said. “But that’s what he does. He’s going to strike out some — at the big-league level, there are going
to be some struggles — but he’s always one swing away from putting one in the seats.”
Oakland’s other two homers Sunday were also solo shots. Marcus Semien lined a homer to left in the first inning and Khris Davis also went deep to left in the fourth.
Davis has a team-high 28 homers, and his 70 homers over the past two seasons are the most in the majors by eight. He has homered in four of the past eight games.
Chapman led off the fifth with a double and a wild pitch sent him to third — where he was picked off by catcher Rene Rivera, who made a terrific throw behind him after Jaycob Brugman’s check swing.
“We’re going on contact,” Melvin said. “Now when the ball crosses (the plate), you have to get back, but Brugman looks like he’s swinging at it. I don’t know I can 100 percent say that’s a complete baserunning mistake. He was being as aggressive as I wanted him to be. The other ones ... we made some mistakes.”
In the sixth, Semien hit a flare near the right-field line that appeared as if it might be caught, and he didn’t sprint out of the box as hard as he usually does. The ball fell in, giving Semien a gift single, but he tried to advance to second on the play and was thrown out with ease.
“When I hit it, I didn’t see it at first,” Semien said. “Then I did, and when I was running, I got caught out too far (around first) and just kept going. I was hoping he threw it off line at that point.”
In the ninth, with Oakland looking to add to its lead, Davis singled with one out. Rajai Davis pinch ran and stole second. Lowrie walked, and with Bruce Maxwell at the plate, Rajai Davis faked as if he were taking off for third. Lowrie, thinking Davis was going, raced for second. Both baserunners wound up there, and Lowrie was out.
“I just got caught with my head down,” Lowrie said, “but I knew they could still throw behind me and I had to bust it.”
Defensively, the A’s had only one small gaffe. With two outs in the fifth, Mets starter Rafael Montero singled, his first bigleague hit, then Michael Conforto reached on a strikeoutwild pitch. When Maxwell, the catcher, couldn’t corral the ball quickly, Montero went from first to third on the wild pitch.
Rookie Daniel Gossett turned in a solid start, giving up his usual home run but just a solo shot, by Conforto in the third. Gossett has allowed 11 homers in eight starts and 431⁄3 innings. The Mets’ other run off him came in the sixth, when Jay Bruce led off with a single, T.J. Rivera doubled with one out, advancing Bruce to third, and Jose Reyes provided an RBI groundout.
“That’s the best he’s pitched,” Melvin said. “I think overall he looked as comfortable as we’ve seen him.”
Gossett worked six innings to earn his second big-league win and said he’d made some adjustments to his delivery with pitching coach Scott Emerson last week.
“Just trying to get a little more turn, a little more of my body, into my delivery,” he said. “It looked like I was up there throwing darts and we wanted to get a little more aggression in there.”
In the fifth, Gossett had to spear a line drive right at his head off the bat of Curtis Granderson.
“I got in the dugout and asked how hard that was and they said, ‘85,’ and I couldn’t believe it,” Gossett said. “I could have sworn it was 120.”