Athletics' bats can't build on momentum, go silent until late in loss
The Athletics initially picked up where they left off Sunday but their bats quickly went quiet in a 6-3 road loss to the Cleveland Guardians.
A first-inning home run by Ramón Laureano was cause for hope they could build on Saturday's 10-5 win which snapped a season-high 10-game losing streak. But Cleveland struck back immediately for three runs in the bottom of the inning against Cole Irvin and two more in the sixth of a game that began at 11:35 a.m. on the East Coast.
Irvin fell to 2-3, with Guardians starter Cal Quantrill improving to 3-3. Neither saw the seventh inning. The Athletics dropped to 21-41 on the season, with Cleveland improving to 2927. The home run by Laureano was his eighth of the season.
The Athletics haven't won back-to-back games since May 24-25 in Seattle, at which time they were 1927.
Trailing 6-1, the Athletics staged a late uprising in the eighth when Christian Bethancourt and Seth Brown went back-to-back with solo home runs in the eighth inning against Trevor Stephan. It was Bethancourt's fourth homer of the season and third of the series, as he went 9-for-17 against Cleveland. Brown's was his eighth of the season, a day after his grand slam helped snap the losing streak.
“I think guys are getting more confident, taking better at-bats,” A's manager Mark Kotsay said. “We've known the power is in there for the guys that hit the home runs. (Sean) Murphy, Brown, Bethancourt once he got the first one out of the way.”
Irvin, who got the last two outs of the first inning on a double play, retried the next 12 batters over four innings before Cleveland added on with a pair of runs in the sixth — an RBI double by Amed Rosario and a run-scoring single by Josh Naylor.
Myles Straw opened with a single, and came all the way around to score when Rosario's double rattled into the left field corner. Irvin got the next two hitters, but left an 0-2 pitch in the zone that Naylor hit over the outstretched glove of Elvis Andrus at short for a 5-1 lead. A run-scoring fielder's choice with the bases loaded against the A's Adam Oller added another run in the seventh.
Cleveland jumped on Irvin in the first inning for a two-run double by José Ramírez and a seeing-eye ground ball single through a drawn in infield by Owen Miller for a 3-1 lead.
“I was trying to be too cute in that first inning, trying to fool guys,” Irvin said. “I wasn't attacking like I was later in the game. That's on me 100%. All in all I'm pretty critical of myself on this one.”
Straw reached base when a comebacker glanced off the glove of Irvin and appeared to surprise Andrus, who mishandled the relatively slow-moving ball for an error.
“I was the reason the ball skipped on him on that one,” Irvin said. “Ultimately I should have let him have it. That's an easy out right there.”
Austin Pruitt came on and got Ernie Clements on a comebacker to end the inning.
Irvin threw 80 pitches in 5 2/3 innings, giving up four earned runs and with a walk and five strikeouts.
Rosario doubled, and then Ramirez laced a double to left to bring in two runs. Irvin got Oscar Gonzalez on a grounder, and Miller followed with his run-scoring single.
Quantrill gave way to Bryan Shaw to open the seventh, having given up four hits and one earned run on the first-inning home run to Laureano. He walked two, struck out four and threw 90 pitches — 61 of them strikes. Emmanuel Clase pitched the ninth for Cleveland for his 11th save.
Laureano's home run in the first was the A's fifth home run in seven innings going back to Saturday's late outburst. The ball left at 107.2 miles per hour and traveled 401 feet.
The Athletics could do little against Quantrill but staged at two-out rally in the sixth on a double by Bethancourt and a walk to Brown. The two executed a double steal to put runners at second and third, but Murphy popped out in foul territory to Naylor at first, who caught the ball as he tumbled to the ground after narrowly missing a collision with Quantrill.
Bethancourt's tear
The seeds of Bethancourt's hot streak were planted in Oakland two days before he hit his first home run in a 5-4 loss to Houston on June 1.
“I'm just trying to be aggressive within my strike zone,” Bethancourt said. “I'm going to swing at balls off the strike zone like everybody else does, but I'm going to try and not miss my pitch, put good contact on it. The angle when I'm hitting the ball, I'm trying to get it more in the air.”
With his batting average up to .269, Bethancourt is making a bid to be an everyday player whether it's at catcher, first base or designated hitter.
Up next
Jared Koenig, the 28-year-old rookie lefthander from Aptos, gets his second start for the A's Tuesday night when the team travels to Fenway Park to play the Red Sox. He's followed by James Kaprielian and Paul Blackburn in the rotation.