Just 4 early games, but Oakland in funk
There were plenty of ways to convey the Astros’ dominance of the A’s in their opening fourgame series. The A’s emerged winless. They did not lead once in four games. After a 92 loss Sunday, they are 04 for the first time in 34 years.
Outscored by a 359 total, the A’s weathered their most lopsided run margin in a fourgame series since 1950. They became the fifth majorleague team since 1901 to allow eight or more runs in each of their first four games of a season, the first since a 2009 Cleveland squad that finished with 65 wins.
Ultimately, there was this: A position player pitched the final inning for the A’s. And when Ka’ai Tom hurled a scoreless frame, he got the biggest cheer of the weekend at the Coliseum.
“Look, we don’t feel good about it,” manager Bob Melvin said. “A little bit embarrassing. We played really poorly and they played great. We ended up losing four games. But I think in perspective, we have to look at it as just four games in 162.”
Astros rookie outfielder Chas McCormick, who hit his first majorleague home run Sunday, took a more immediate view.
“Honestly,” McCormick told reporters, “we just crushed them from pitch one to the last pitch of the whole series.”
Last week, Matt Chapman, Oakland’s Platinum Glove third baseman, welcomed opening against Houston. The teams seesawed in 2020, with the A’s winning the AL West and the Astros beating them in the playoffs. Chapman’s words were emphatic: “That’s probably in our opinion our biggest competition in this division,” he said. “But we’re the reigning champs and they’ve got to prove it to us.”
What could go wrong for the A’s in the series then seemed to. Their four starting pitchers totaled 191⁄3 innings and gave up 17 runs. Their lineup squandered opportunities at big innings. Their final 14 hitters Sunday went down in order. Their bullpen, such a strength in 2020, was vulnerable.
In the sixth inning Sunday, Astros catcher Jason Castro hit a potential inningending doubleplay grounder to Chapman, who was playing near second base in a shift. Chapman tried an underhand flip to the bag and lost his grip. Everyone was safe. The next batter, McCormick, hit a threerun homer off Yusmeiro Petit.
“It’s a tough way to start the season,” lefthander Sean Manaea said. “I don’t think anybody’s pretty happy with how we’ve played. Just got to keep going.”
Tom, who started the game in left field, came in to pitch the ninth inning to give an overworked bullpen a reprieve. Facing the top of the Astros’ lineup, Tom retired Jose Altuve and Kyle Tucker on lazy flyballs and, after Robel Garcia singled, got Yordan Alvarez on a groundout. Said one fan: “He should have started.”
“That kind of reminded me of
Little League, just kind of going out there and pitching,” said Tom, a Rule 5 pick who last pitched at high school age. “The whole time I was on the mound I was just hoping that they did not hit the ball back to me. … But it was a pretty fun experience.”
Melvin hadn’t used a position player to pitch since July 22, 2019, when Nick Martini worked an inning in an 111 loss to Houston.
“Our bullpen was beat up over the course of these four games,” Melvin said, noting the A’s play the next six days against the Dodgers and Astros again. “I hate doing it, but we had to do it.”
Manaea reached the 100pitch mark in a start Sunday for the first time since June 2018. But that only got him into the fifth inning. Tucker, the game’s second batter, drove a Manaea fastball 407 feet to center for a homer. Castro crushed a fastball for a tworun homer in the second after Manaea walked Myles Straw with two outs. Yuli Gurriel hit a tworun double in the third that ricocheted from center fielder Mark Canha’s glove to the wall and back to Canha for a noncatch.
Canha doubled to lead off the first for the A’s, scoring on Jed Lowrie’s double, and tripled to account for half their hits.
“Those guys are a very good team, very good hitting team,” Manaea said. “You make mistakes and they get hit and make some good pitches and they get hit, too. So, it’s tough when you’ve got guys that are hot. But that’s part of the game. Just got to be better.”