By Morris Phillips

Last season, the A’s couldn’t get enough of the Blue Jays. This season? They would prefer to forget they ever took the field with those guys.

The A’s suffered a 5-4, 11-inning loss on Sunday, the culmination of being swept in consecutive weekends by Toronto (0-6), the ultimate getback after the A’s went 7-0 against the Blue Jay’s in 2018. What’s worse, the A’s blew a 4-1 lead in the 11th as closer Blake Treinen couldn’t close the door.

Brandon Drury’s three-run homer wiped out the A’s lead, and four batters later, Justin Smoak’s RBI single scoring Freddy Galvez ended it.

“Falling behind guys and giving up soft contact like that is just embarrassing on my end,” Treinen said. “The team scraps as well as it did to get runs late and then they put their faith in me to go out there and get three outs. I mean a leadoff hit is whatever, a guy goes across the plate it doesn’t matter, but then I just didn’t execute pitches and fell behind and lost some feel and it sucks. It really sucks.”

The A’s fell to 14-16 with the loss, four games off the pace of the division-leading Astros, who won 4-1 over the Indians Sunday night.

Chris Bassitt was impressive–and more expressive–in his second start, allowing a run in seven innings with nine strikeouts and no walks. With all the upheaval and inconsistency in the rotation, Bassitt appears to be stability after two, superior starts.

With his energy on the mound, along with the quality pitches, Bassitt carried the A’s for seven innings. J.B. Wendelken picked Bassitt up with a brisk eighth, and Joakim Soria gave up a couple of hits, but kept the game 1-1 in the ninth.

A weird vibe persisted because of the A’s aversion to being swept and their lack of offense–two singles and an Khris Davis double–through nine innings. Bassitt did his best to explain the team’s malaise that preceded the game’s unusual conclusion in the 10th and 11th.

“It was just we were all kind of sleepwalking a little bit,” Bassitt opined. “It happens. Everyone goes through this, but we obviously have to snap out of it.”