by Jerry Feitelberg

Kendall Graveman

The A’s and Padres concluded the four-game home and home series on Thursday at the O.co Coliseum. The game was played in the sunshine, and it was a close game but, as you know, the A’s have a losing record in games that are played in the daytime and are close. Today’s game was no exception as Oakland lost by a final score of 3-1. The Padres snapped their four-game losing streak and ended the A’s modest four-game winning streak

A’s starter Kendall Graveman pitched well, but he made two mistakes and took the loss. He gave up a solo home run to Matt Kemp in the fourth and former A’s catcher, Derek Norris, homered to lead off in the sixth to give San Diego enough runs to win the game. The A’s could not solve Ian Kennedy at all. The only mistake Kennedy made was a solo home run to A’s catcher Josh Phegley in the bottom of the sixth. The Padres added a run in the eighth after Billy Burns and Josh Reddick collided in deep right centerfield on a Melvin Upton, Jr flyball. The ball dropped allowing Upton to reach third for a triple. Reddick fell to the ground after the collision and lay motionless for about a minute or two. Bob Melvin and a trainer rushed out to see if Reddick was OK and after a few minutes he got to his feet and returned to action with no damage done. Nonetheless, it was a scary few moments. Upton scored on a foul out to first baseman Stephen Vogt. Vogt caught the ball over his shoulder, spun around and threw home trying to nail Upton at the plate but the throw was offline, and the Padres added the insurance run to take a 3-1 advantage. The A’s went down in order in the eighth. Vogt doubled with two out in the ninth, but Padres’ closer Craig Kimbrel struck out Billy Butler to end the game.

Game Notes- Kendall Graveman took the loss and is now 3-4 for the year. Graveman is 2-2 with an ERA of 2.27 in six starts since his return from Nashville on May 23rd. His line for the day was 7 IP, five hits and two runs. He lost his last start 1-0 to the LA Angels.

Billy  Burns was 1-for-4 and has hit safely in each of his last nine games. Josh Phegley hit his third home run of the year and the first one against a right-hander.  Stephen Vogt has now reached base safely in all 30 of his home games, which is the second longest season-opening streak in Oakland history. The record is held by Rickey Henderson, who had 33 in 1993.

The line score for San Diego was three runs, seven hits, and no errors while Oakland’s was one run on five hits and two errors.

The A’s continue the homestand against the Los Angeles Angels Friday night at 6 pm. There will be fireworks after the game. The A’s ace, Sonny Gray (8-3, 1.60 ERA) will go for Oakland, and Matt Shoemaker(4-5, 4.85) will pitch for the Halos.

Game time was two hours and thirty-nine minutes, and there were 16,643 people watching.