Throwing error costly as 5 homers wasted
With two on and two outs in the seventh, manager Bob Melvin made the unusual decision to bring in his best reliever, closer Blake Treinen, to face Zack Cozart. Cozart hit a slow, high hopper to Chapman, who’d already turned in two terrific plays in the game. Chapman fielded the ball behind the bag, took some time with the throw, and just flubbed it, throwing it too far to Matt Olson’s right for the first baseman to scoop it cleanly.
“I just maybe rushed the throw a little bit, didn’t set my feet,” Chapman said. “Kind of yanked the throw a little bit. I know Olson tried as hard as he could to stay on the base.”
Both runners scored, and after an intentional walk to Mike Trout, Treinen gave up a three-run homer to Justin Upton. All the runs were unearned, thanks to the error by Chapman.
“He’s a terrific defender, he doesn’t make that play too often,” Melvin said.
That was a dagger for a team that had led 6-0 after the top of the second inning, driving Angels starter Parker Bridwell out of the game early. Jed Lowrie hit a solo drive in the first, and Matt Joyce thumped a two-run homer in the second against his former team. Marcus Semien made it back-to-back shots with his first homer of the season. Chapman smacked a two-run shot in the fifth and, in the seventh, Olson hit a solo shot off exA’s reliever Jim Johnson, making it a full Matt-trick on the evening.
“Our bats came alive tonight,” Chapman said. “I think we have a lot of stuff to build on and if we kind of take away some of the positives and kind of flush the negatives, we’ll be good.”
In the second, the A’s recorded seven hits and a sacrifice fly, by Stephen Piscotty, and Angels catcher Martin Maldonado helped with a passed ball that sent in Chapman with the first run of the inning.
As well as the A’s swung the bats, Oakland’s pitching left something to be desired. Daniel Gossett gave up five runs in 31⁄3 innings, starting with Shohei Ohtani’s solo shot in the second inning, the two-way star’s third homer in three games as a hitter.
Yusmeiro Petit then gave up two runs in the fifth, trimming Oakland’s lead to one. One of the runs charged to Petit came when Liam Hendriks, on in relief, walked Ohtani on four pitches to send Albert Pujols in from third. Hendriks then got Maldonado to hit a grounder to third, where Chapman made the play, quickly stepped on the bag and fired to first for an inning-ending double play.
In the seventh, Chapman made a fantastic diving catch on a rocket off Maldonado’s bat. In just 84 games last season, Chapman was the second-best third baseman in the majors in terms of defensive runs saved, with 19, behind only to Nolan Arenado.
Chapman, who grew up minutes away from Angel Stadium, is 14 for his past 30 and is batting .412 overall.
Earlier in the day, he was one of the Oakland players affected by a fire in the loading dock of the team hotel. “I didn’t even smell a fire, but they were kicking everyone out,” Chapman said. “I had to get my stuff out of my room — so I had to walk up 16 flights of stairs. I just used it as my active warmup.”
Santiago Casilla, making just his second appearance of the season, allowed a run in the eighth.
“We just needed to pitch a little better tonight,” Melvin said. “Up and down the lineup, we swung the bat pretty well — we just can’t give up that many runs.”
The game ended in an appropriately ugly fashion for Oakland: Lowrie hit a ball off the wall in right center, went too far around first and was tagged out.