By Kahlil Najar

OAKLAND –

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. The Oakland A’s bullpen blew a five run lead in the top of the seventh that lead to another loss after a spectacular start from a starting pitcher.

The A’s bullpen gave up a season worst eight runs in the top of the eighth to lose to the Angels  12-7. Starting pitcher Sonny Gray lasted six innings and gave up five earned runs and only struck out a pair.

“I went out in the seventh and I’ve gotta be a little better in attacking the zone, making them beat us instead of me just kind of giving it away to them,” said Gray. “It was just a really bad inning, and it started with me. You can say this happened and this happened. But you walk the first two guys on 10 pitches, you give them a little bit of hope.”

In addition to the bad seventh, the A’s committed four errors through out the game to give them a total of 65 errors this year. Enough to land that at number one in the league in errors and 10 more than the second place team, the Texas Rangers.

“We weren’t very good defensively today,” said head coach Bob Melvin. “We have been better recently, but you’re not going to win many games when you’re making four errors.”

Brett Lawrie committed a pair and Ben Zorbist and Edward Mujica committed one error each.

The A’s looked good early when Zorbist hit his fourth homer of the year in the bottom of the first with two men aboard to give the A’s an early 3-o lead. Stephen Vogt contributed three runs on the evening when he hit his 13th homer of the year on the fifth and smacked a line drive double in the bottom of the sixth to get him his second and third RBI of the night.

But that dreaded seventh inning did Oakland in.

Gray gave up a pair of walks to start the inning and then tossed a 90 MPH cutter to Matt Joyce who singled to left field and scored Aybar to give the Angels their third run of the night. Chris Iannetta then singled to load the bases and caused Bob Melvin to get the game ball from Gray and give it to new A’s pitcher Drew Pomeranz. After a tough seven pitch at bar, Pomeranz walked Daniel Robertson that allowed Giavotella to score and make it a 7-4 game in favor of Oakland. After a quick strike out to Kole Calhoun, Pomeranz was replaced by Edward Mujica. Mujica then proceded to give up five runs including a grand slam to Albert Pujols which gave the Angels a 9-7 lead with only one out. Evan Scribner came in to relieve Mujica but still gave up a RBI single to Giavotella and made it 10 – 7 going into the bottom of the seventh.

The Angels tapped in two more runs in the top of the ninth to make it a 12 – 7 final score.

“You get an extra two runs in the bottom of the sixth, and you feel pretty good about a five-run lead with nine outs to go,” said Vogt. “You’ve got to give them some credit. They smelled blood and they didn’t stop. We’ve gotta take better care of the ball on the defensive side. A team like that, when you give them more than three outs, they’re going to take advantage, especially when you give them five or six in one inning.”

The Angels and A’s head back at it tomorrow when the Angels send up Jared Weaver (4-7) against Jesse Hahn (4-5). Weaver looks to end a three-start losing streak while Hahn is winless in six starts against the AL West.