by Kahlil Najar

The troubles continue for the Oakland A’s and their bullpen. With a 6-2 lead going into the seventh inning, the A’s bullpen gave up 5 unearned runs and ended up losing to the Chicago White Sox 7-6.

The A’s made it exciting in the bottom of the ninth when with two out head coach Bob Melvin sent in Steven Vogt to pinch hit. He garnered a walk to first base and was able to bring up Coco Crisp.

Crisp came up and hit a deep shot to left center field that hit off the wall but right into center fielder Adam Easton’s glove who was able to relay the ball home after what looked like a questionable go-no-stay call from Oakland Third Base coach Mike Gallego.

” I was watching the ball and obviously picking up Vogt-er and when I looked back it looked like he had started to send him but then tried to hold him up. I didn’t think he could score there so he was trying to hold him,” said Melvin on the last play of the game.

The A’s actually started off this game in a horrible way. Starting pitcher Jesse Han started the game by giving up a double, a walk and then a single to load up the bases. Then on six pitches he walked Adam LaRoche to give the White Sox a 1-0 lead. Avisail Garciathen grounded the ball to Brett Lawrie who tossed it home to get the first out of the inning.

Conor Gillaspi then smacked a hit to center field and scored Jose Abreu to make it a 2-0 White Sox lead.

The A’s waited until the fourth inning to get on the board with a deep shot to Left Center from Josh Phegley who hit his first homer of the year to cut the lead in half. Then after three consecutive walks to Burns, Sogard and Crisp, Josh Reddick hit his second triple of the year and cleared the bases to give Oakland a 4-2 lead.

In the fifth, the A’s scored again after a flurry on walks given up by White Sox reliever Scott Carroll allowed Eric Sogard to hit a single left field and score Lawrie.  Then in the sixth after Reddick hit a double, Billy Butler was able to score Reddick and make it a 6-2 Oakland lead after six innings.

Then the seventh inning and the A’s bullpen came into play.

Hahn was still in and was able to get one out but after an error by Lawrie and a single to Sanchez, head coach Bob Melvin decided to take Hahn out and give the ball to Fernando Rodriguez with a four run lead.

Rodriguez was able to get the next batter to ground out but then the troubles came.

Rodriguez gave up a single to Melky Cabrera which scored a run for the White Sox and then he hit Jose Abreu to load the bases.

Melvin had seen enough of Rodriquez and substituted in Fernando Abad.

Abad promptly gave up a double to LaRoche which scored two more base runners for Chicago and made it a 6-5 game.

Abad was then pulled for the usually reliable Evan Scribner. However tonight Scribner decided to follow the steps of Abad and gave up another double to Garcia which scored another pair of runs for Chicago to give them a 7-6 lead.

The A’s tried to make a run in the eighth when they garnered two singles but weren’t able to score. Then the ninth inning happened and we don’t want to relive that.

With Reddick’s triple in the fourth, it snapped a 0-21 streak that the A’s had with Runners In Scoring position. The A’s were 3 for 14 tonight with RISP.

The A’s have now given up 35 runs in the Seventh inning in 37 games. When reminded of this Melvin said, “I have to some how find the right answer in that inning. We had three guys in the inning that we thought could do it.”

The A’s hope to turn it around tomorrow when they send Jesse Chavez to the mound to face John Danks, game time 6:05 pm.