By Morris Phillips

Momentum is today’s starting pitcher, especially when reliving the previous day’s loss is too painful an exercise.

The A’s gave up eight runs in the seventh inning Friday, allowing the Angels to rally for a 12-7 win after trailing 7-2, and the consensus was the team had suffered it’s worst loss of the season to date.   Nobody wanted to talk about what transpired Friday, including the team’s broadcasters at the beginning of the telecast. The A’s allowing 10 runs in the final three innings, and contributing three errors to the Angels’ rally obviously led to that frustrated response.

But professional baseball players have fewer than 24 hours to turn the page, and that’s where starting pitcher Jesse Hahn came into the story. Hahn was magnificient, pitching into the eighth inning, allowing one run in the A’s 4-1 bounce back win on Saturday at the O.co Coliseum.  Hahn has won four of his last five decisions and the A’s are 4-0 in the rookie’s June starts.

“The other night in San Diego he mixed all four of his pitches up which he hadn’t really done to this point and it looked like today he was using all four of them again,” Stephen Vogt said of his teammate. “And anytime you keep that lineup to one run, it doesn’t matter how he did it, it’s an outstanding job because that lineup over there is one of the best in the league.”

Hahn has turned the corner in his first major league season by expanding his repetoire to include a fastball, curve, sinker and change after he faltered early with only his fastball and sinker being reliable. The extra weapons were key on Saturday as Hahn escaped jams in the second and third innings with the game still scoreless. In the third, Hahn induced red hot Albert Pujols to fly out to end the inning with two runners in scoring position.

“That was huge,” Hahn said. “I just tried to get groundballs with my sinker and the defense played great behind me.”

The A’s led 1-0 until the sixth when Eric Aybar’s RBI single tied the score. But the A’s used the Angels’ rally as smelling salts, responding with three runs of their own in the bottom of the inning. Josh Reddick, Brett Lawrie and Josh Phegley had RBI doubles in the outburst.

“For the offense to come through for him and get him an early run, and right after he gives up one, we come right back with three,” Vogt said. “That’s always huge for your pitcher.”

Hahn pitched a shut down inning in the seventh, and retired two batters in the eighth before Tyler Clippard came on for the four-out save. Jared Weaver allowed the first three of Oakland’s four RBI doubles and took the loss. Vogt’s RBI double in the first inning gave him 51 runs batted in on the season, tied for the lead in the American League.

The Red Sox and White Sox also won on Saturday, keeping the A’s as the team with the worst record in the American League for at least one more day.   The Astros lost, moving Oakland within 10 ½ games of the top spot in the AL West.

On Sunday, the A’s look to capture the series’ rubber game with Scott Kazmir on the mound in a matchup with Garrett Richards. Kazmir has yet to allow a home run at the Coliseum in any of his six starts this season.