By Morris Phillips

In Ricky Nolasco’s lengthy big league career filled with ups and downs, he’s been a double-digit winner—and loser—numerous times. But he’s never had a won-loss record of 5-13, or lost for a 13^th time in a season in the frustrating manner he experienced on Tuesday night at the Coliseum.

Nolasco was virtually unhittable, retiring the first 16 A’s he faced, and allowing just one hit through seven. By that point, the A’s were virtually inconsolable, as slugger Khris Davis threw his bat down in disgust after striking out to end the seventh.

Then everything changed in a hurry, the second time in three days the A’s have fashioned a late-game about face.

Trailing 2-0, the first five A’s to bat in the eighth reached, chasing Nolasco, and making the A’s 3-2 winners over the Angels in a most unique manner. Again, the most youthful of the A’s young roster led the way, and sounded like season veterans that have been through the paces afterwards.

“Whether we get 10 hits in the first five innings and lose or get whatever it was in the back half of the game and win, I don’t really care how it happens, I just want to get a victory,” Ryon Healy said.

Healy was the first Athletic to manage a hit—in the sixth—hardly the avalanche of offense A’s fans thirst for in a season of watching one of the worst teams in baseball in terms of producing offense on their home diamond. On Tuesday, the first six innings were more of the same for a team that’s won just 31 home games and is hitting .239 as a team in the Coliseum.

But the eighth was something to see as Nolasco walked Yonder Alonso, allowed a base hit to Billy Butler, then walked Arismendy Alcantara to load the bases. That ended Nolasco’s evening, despite him allowing just two hits and the two, eighth inning walks.

“It looked like he lost his release point,” Angels’ manager Mike Scioscia said.

Reliever Mike Morin followed Nolasco, and seven pitches later the A’s had the lead. Healy knocked in Alonso, and Joey Wendle, just one day removed from his first major league RBI and hitting just .214, delivered a two-run single through a drawn-in infield to put the A’s up 3-2.

Alcantara, briefly a major leaguer with the Cubs in 2015, and toiling with Single-A Stockton over the weekend, was promoted before the game and scored the winning run. Alcantara’s promotion was his fourth this season, giving him a keen appreciation of Northern California highways, and Wendle was participating in just his fifth major league game.

“For a guy that just got called up, that really makes him settle in,” manager Bob Melvin said of Wendle, though he probably he could have been speaking of Alcantara as well. “We liked him in the spring. Now he’s getting an opportunity.”

The A’s won for just the 12^th time in their last 36 games, but they’ve played cardiac kids in winning on Sunday against the Red Sox, and again on Tuesday. On one level, it’s frustration for the guys that have spent the entirety of their season in Oakland. For the younger group, it’s fun mixed with frustration.

In the case of Wendle, he got his scouting report on the fly from hitting coach Darren Bush. Consider it the athletic equivalent of Donald Trump’s handlers prepping him mere seconds before a big campaign speech.

“He told me that he’s got a changeup, then he’s got a slower changeup,” Wendle said of Bush’s scouting report on Morin.

The A’s close their series with the Angels on Wednesday afternoon, as Jharel Cotton makes his big league debut in a matchup with the Angels’ Alex Meyer at 12:35pm.