By Matthew T.F. Harrington
photo credit:bloguin.com file photo Oakland A’s right hander Kendall Graveman improved his ERA to 4.73 throwing five shutout innings against the San Francisco Giants on Friday night
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – In the bigger picture, spring training stats mean little to a team’s World Series chances. A win in March won’t make a difference in the standings the way a game in July does. That being said the Oakland Athletics still have to be concerned, albeit ever so minutely, after dropping their 5th straight exhibition contest 3-0 to the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park Friday.
The A’s dropped the middle contest of the Bay Bridge Series after their cross-Bay foes plated two runs in the bottom of the first inning off starter Kendall Graveman. Jake Peavy (2-0, 6.11 ERA), taking the hill for the home team, pitched 5 scoreless innings and wound up the winner thanks to a two-run double from his batterymate Buster Posey. Outfielders Coco Crisp and Josh Reddick were the only A’s to get hits off Peavy. The Giants also scored a run off Oakland’s bullpen.
Graveman (1-2, 4.73) entered Friday coming off his best start of the spring after allowing 12 runs over his first 14.2 innings. The 25-year-old righty held the defending World Champion Kansas City Royals to a lone run over 7 innings of 4-hit ball Sunday in Arizona.
“It started off slow,” said Graveman of his spring. “I thought I got incrementally better each outing. It’s something I wanted to do, tune it up before the regular season. I wanted intent with every pitch. I don’t think I could say that with honesty in the first couple outings.”
His Friday appearance looked to be skewing more towards his previous starts than his recent run. Giants leadoff man Denard Span reached base on a single to right, then two-hole hitter Joe Panik reached base after drawing a full-count walk. The 2012 Most Valuable Player Posey punished Graveman for setting the table for the catcher, lining a sinker down the left field chalk to plate a pair of runs with no outs. Graveman recovered though, retiring Hunter Pence, Brandon Belt and Matt Duffy in order, stranding Posey at third base.
“Give Posey credit,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin. “(Graveman) keeps him on the ground, he just hits it down the line. I thought he did well, he kept the ball down. When he’s right the ball is on the ground.”
From there, one of the pieces of the Josh Donaldson trade with Toronto remained locked in on the mound. He finished the night firing 5 innings, yielding 5 hits while walking a pair with a quartet of punchouts.
“It was just like last start,” said Graveman. “I was throwing all 4 pitches for strikes. As long as I can do that and keep all four of them in the zone and throw them in any count.”
Graveman is penciled to fit somewhere in the A’s starting rotation behind opening day starter Sonny Gray and offseason acquisition Rich Hill. He is hoping to build off a 6-9 2015 campaign that saw him compile a 4.05 earned run average over 21 starts while missing the final month of the season with a strained oblique. He hopes the addition of a changeup will help him solidify a spot towards the front end, not the back when the A’s open the season against the Chicago White Sox Monday.
“It felt good,” said Graveman of his new pitch. “I got some ground balls, a couple broken bats. It’s something I’ll have to carry throughout the whole season to be successful. Tonight, being behind in the count or ahead, it was a good pitch.”
The new surroundings helped Graveman and his arsenal of cutters and sinkers he has thrown so well in his time in green and gold. Going from the band boxes and thin air of the Cactus league to 24 Willie Mays Plaza proved beneficial to the bounce-out specialist.
“It’s good for guys who throw sinker balls,” Said Graveman of the change in atmosphere. “You can see some sliders and some people’s pitches shaping up nicer than they do in Arizona. It’s because the air is so thin.”
While Graveman will have to wait until the regular season to test his performance in-game, Oakland still has a chance to improve an offense that only produced 4 hits and put a solitary runner in scoring position. Saturday, the first game exhibition or otherwise at the O.Co Coliseum, will give the A’s a chance to move past a 7-hit, single-run first two games of the preseason Bay Bridge series.
“We had a really good spring,” said Melvin. “We feel like we have guys who can swing the bat. We didn’t here the last couple nights. They pitched well. We hit four or five balls right on the nose too. They play great defense. It’s what they do.”
Felix Doubront, recently named the A’s fifth starter, will square off against Matt Cain. The one-time no-hitter is looking to prove he is healthy enough to lock down the Giants fifth and final spot in the rotation.
Notes: The A’s are expected to announce their final roster after Saturday’s game. Bob Melvin said he expects to start some of the regulars… Chris Coghlan played 2nd base, 3rd base and the outfield in Friday’s contest….Franklin Barreto was a last-second addition to the A’s dugout Friday, arriving at the park around 8 pm to fill in for the injured Eric Sogard. Sogard is dealing with a neck injury and is day-to-day.
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