Squandered opportunities prove costly to A’s in defeat
OAKLAND >> The thrill of Jed Lowrie’s walk-off home run Friday night juxtaposed with a grueling one-run loss to the middling Cleveland Indians tells the story of the A’s this season. They have the talent to contend for the division title, but inconsistent offense often catches up to them.
It caught up to them in Saturday’s 3-2 loss to the Indians at the Coliseum, where the A’s made clear they’ve made a bad habit of not capitalizing on opportune scoring situations.
Lowrie had a chance to play hero again when he entered the game as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the ninth with two runners on and no outs, the A’s down two runs. He flew out to advance Matt Chapman to third base.
Sean Murphy, another pinch hitter, came to the plate with a chance to become their newest hero. He scored Chapman from third on a sacrifice fly — close, but not enough. Elvis Andrus was a half-inch shy of an infield hit that could have extended the inning, but he was called out on replay review; there would be no hero.
“If Elvis beats it out and (Matt Olson) gets a hit, then we’re talking about a different game,” Melvin said. “We have a lot more offensively, our poten
tial is more than we’re doing and have dpen came earlier, too before a crowd of 11,374.
Twice in the fifth inning the A’one right before the break. We got base runners on with a chance to win the game, we just didn’t get a big hit at the end.”
Opportunities to crack the game os had the bases loaded with an opportunity to turn a one-run deficit into a healthy lead, but went scoreless both times. The first came with no outs when Tony Kemp reached on an infield hit and Aramis Garcia and Canha — reinstated from the injured list — were hit by pitches. Canha might’ve gone hitless, but got back into his element hit by a pitch for the 14th time this year.
Andrus — one of the A’s hottest hitters of late batting .285 over the A’s offensive skid that dates back to June 25 — grounded into a 5-2-3 double play. Cleveland starter Cal Quantrill didn’t give Olson much to work with, walking him with two outs to load the bases again. Mitch Moreland flew out to end a scoreless inning.
Olson and Moreland put together the A’s early 1-0 lead in the first inning with Olson’s double — his fourth hit of the series — and Moreland’s RBI double. One run wouldn’t suffice. BASES-LOADED WOES >> While the A’s are batting .259 with runners in scoring position, good for a 10th-best average in baseball, their .222 average with the bases loaded is good for fifthworst in baseball.
Those numbers get worse narrowed down to the latest skid that started against the Giants on June 25 and coincided with Canha hitting the injured list. Over the 15 games heading into Saturday’s, the A’s batted a league-worst .212 and their average with runners in scoring position plummeted to .217. Even more alarming, the A’s didn’t collect one hit and crossed just three runs with the bases loaded in any situation.
“I think maybe sometimes you put pressure on yourselves when you don’t come through and it snowballs a little bit and it gets contagious,” Melvin said. “As long as we keep getting opportunities, we have quality hitters and they’re going to come through. We just have gone through a period where we have not. I know our numbers don’t look great over the course of the season but I’m confident that will pick up.”
Moreland echoed a similar sentiment.
“All I can say is we put ourselves in the opportunities and giving us chances to win games,” he said. “This fell on me a couple times the last couple days not being able to get it done, but keep getting guys out there, it’s going to happen. This team is
too good.”
A THIN MARGIN FOR PITCHERS >> The margin of error was too thin for Frankie Montas, who shouldered the loss despite giving up just two runs over six innings.
The slip-up came in the fifth inning, when the A’s starter started to lose his release point. He gave up two runs on Cesar Hernandez’s RBI double and Amed Rosario’s sacrifice fly.
“He pitched good, when you don’t score too many runs — he gave up two, struck out seven, only walked one gave up six hits — a lot of time you’re going to win that game,” Melvin said.
But Montas strung together a third straight game in which he allowed two-orfewer runs. He struck out seven Indians on 15 swings-and-misses, including eight on his splitter. Montas has been incorporating his splitter more into his pitch mix since his outing against Houston, where he struck out a season-high 10 batters.