CHAVEZ, A’S STOP DODGERS
Starter displays endurance; A’s sweep series against the Dodgers
Jesse Chavez allowed two hits over eight innings as the A’s finished off a two-game sweep of the Dodgers with a 5-2 win. Story,
OAKLAND — Jesse Chavez, determined to shed the notion that he lacks the endurance to survive a full season in the rotation, delivered a loud statement Wednesday.
The A’s right-hander threw a career-high 116 pitches over eight innings and allowed just two hits. Just as important, he had the patience to wait until the offense kicked in to seal Oakland’s 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The A’s got two runs in the sixth to take a 3-2 lead, then added two more in the eighth to lock it down.
Now is the time the A’s focus spreads past this season. Chavez can be part of the A’s starting rotation next year, but not if he wears down as he did in 2014, when the A’s replaced him with Jon Lester at the trade deadline.
Chavez won’t be replaced this year, but it’s up to him to make sure the A’s know he’s up to a full-season challenge.
“I lost my job last year because I got tired,” Chavez said. At 6-foot-2 and 160 pounds, he has trouble keeping weight on, but he’s dedicated this season to retaining as much strength as possible for this time of the season. “I don’t want anybody to think I can’t last.”
Two starts ago, Chavez threw seven innings and gave up one run to beat the Astros, the American League West leader. He took a beating, like everyone did on the A’s 0-7 trip, but pitted against the National League West-leading Dodgers, Chavez was simply dominant.
As impressive as anything was the fact that his best pitch, his cutter, was off. So he augmented his fastball with a slider, changeup and curve. The Los Angeles hitters, mostly looking for the cutter, couldn’t adjust quickly enough.
Now the A’s have sandwiched that seven-game road losing streak with a five-game home winning streak, beating two firstplace teams, the Astros on Aug. 7-9 and the Dodgers on Tuesday and Wednesday. As part of that, Chavez has thrown two games as well as any in his first two months of the season, when he was listed among A.L. ERA leaders (2.11 on May 31).
“Jesse was pretty good,” manager Bob Melvin said. “We haven’t given him much run support this year, so to add on runs at the end was nice. It was one of his better games of the year against a lineup that is tough to navigate through.
“He’s on a mission to prove (talk about his lack of durability) wrong. He had a tough stretch, then got a bit invigorated with the AllStar break. He really wants to get in a good full season where he doesn’t wear down. He’s very aware of what’s happened in the past. He’s doing everything he can to combat that.”
The A’s rotation for next year past Sonny Gray is a bit of a question mark. At times this year, rookies Kendall Graveman, Chris Bassitt and Aaron Brooks have pitched well, as had currently disabled secondyear man Jesse Hahn.
Journeyman Felix Doubront is a 2016 possibility, too. And the A’s can only hope that two men who were supposed to pitch this year after Tommy John surgeries, A.J. Griffin and Jarrod Parker, will be healthy enough to be in the mix before general manager Billy Beane does his annual winter roster remake.
What Chavez knows is that he wants to be one of the five.
“I want to take this game and build off it,” he said.
Hahn may not pitch again this year, Melvin said. Hahn has a right forearm strain that has sidelined him for six weeks, and there is no timetable for him to start playing catch, much less to get on a mound.
First baseman Ike Davis went on the disabled list with a left hip strain. Davis had an MRI, and while the A’s were waiting for the results, they and the first baseman decided he needed to be shut down for at least a couple of weeks. “It could be something that needs rehab; it could be something that needs surgery,” Davis said. “Right now, it’s just a guess.”
Jake Smolinski was recalled from Triple-A Nashville.
Coco Crisp (ankle and neck) and Brett Lawrie (back) have not played since Saturday, and with an offday Thursday, both were on the bench again with the hope that they would be ready Friday.
Mark Canha has followed a 17-game stretch in which he averaged .136 with eight games in which he is averaging .441, including eight hits in his last three games.
Billy Burns had three hits, including a run-scoring double that tied the score in the sixth, after which he would score the go-ahead run.
The club is making a switch in the starting rotation, having Gray and Graveman flop. That keeps Gray on an every-fifth-day pace and gives Graveman, who has been struggling, an extra day off. The club wants Gray, the team ace, to pitch as regularly as possible the rest of the season after he had nine days off before his last start because of back spasms.
Doubront, who allowed one hit and one run in six innings Tuesday, will get another start, Melvin said.