Los Angeles Angels starter Alex Cobbs delivers a pitch against the Oakland A’s in the first inning at the Oakland Coliseum Sat May 29, 2021 in game three of the four game series (AP News photo)

Los Angeles (AL) 4- 9 – 0

Oakland 0 – 3 – 1

By Lewis Rubman

Sat May 29, 2021

OAKLAND– Two of the question marks about the A’s had about their rotation when they returned home from Anaheim on the 27th have been changed to exclamation points after Wednesday night’s masterly complete game shut out of the Angels by Chris Bassett and last night’s stellar 6-2/3 inning gutsy showing against them by Sean Manea. This afternoon we had a chance to see if Frankie Montás would continue this trend of improvement. He almost did.

The bullpen, however, remains unsettled. Perhaps because of the extra day´s rest Bassett´s route going performance gave them, the A’s relievers (at least the two of them who saw action last night) were sharp and effective over 2-1/3 innings.

Nonetheless, it’s a matter of concen that, while the Athletics’s relief corps converted 12 saves out of 13 opportunities and compiled an ERA of 2.32 in the team’s first 29 games in spite of the season opening six game losing streak, in the pen’s last 13 games, it has earned only two saves while blowing four.

During that time, its ERA has been a whopping 6.56 and opposing teams have ganged up on it for a BA of .285. This afternoon, the pen’s performance was excellent.

Oakland intends to activate Jesús Luzardo tomorrow. So, there does seem to be hope in the pitching department.

Ramón Laureano was missing from the starting line up for the second straight game, due to a pulled groin that has him day to day.

Although the Angel’s starter, Alex Cobb is new to the Halos this year, he has nine years of big league experience with Tampa Bay and Baltimore. The basic numbers for this season that he brought to the mound this afternoon, 2-2, 4.78, are pretty much in line with his totals for those nine previous years, 55-57, 3.88, taking into account the violentswings in ERAs that are prevalent this early in the season. He pitched brillantly today.

Slopppy play by the Oakland battery enabled the Angels to fly ahead in the top of the fifth. Rojas led off with a walk. He advanced to second on a wild pitch during Anthony Bemboon´s at bat. Bemboon singled to right, sending Rojas to third.

David Fletcher bunted towards first, making hard enough contact to enable Olson to charge down the line, field the ball cleanly, and flip it like a frisibee in time for Aramis García, who was waiting at home, to tag Rojas. Only he didn’t tag him.

The ball bounced off the catcher’s mitt, Rojas scored, and Bemboom reached second. The play was ruled a fielder’s choice with an error charged to García. After Justin Upton flew out to left for the second out, Ohtani, who had yet to get a hit in the series, came to the plate. Before he could do anything, Montás unleashed a wild pitch that scored Bemboon and allowed Fletcher to reach second.

Then Ohtani lined a single to left that drove in Fletcher. He proceeded to steal second on a pitchso far outside that García made a nice play merely to catch it. Rendon’s single to right drove in Ohtani with the Halos’ fourth unearned run of the frame. Things were beginning to look like a mirror image of Wednesday´s game between these two teams.

Montás was pitching a nice comeback inning in the sixth, having struck out Lagares and Rojas, when Kean Wong´s double off the right center field wall drove him out of the box. Cam Bedrosian replaced him for the next inning and a third.

Montás had thrown 98 pitches, 68 of them strikes. 10% of the remaining 30 were wild pitches. He’d gone 5-2/3 innings and allowed four runs, none of which was earned, on six hits. He walked only one batter, but that was offset by his three wild pitches. He notched seven Ks.

Deolis Guerra took over for Montás to start the eighth and stayed on for an inning and a third, leaving in the top of the ninth with a runner on first after having struck out two Angels and yielded a walk and a hit but no runs. That was because Sergio Romo stranded Fletcher, who had gotten the hit, at first, striking out Upton and getting Ohtani to foul out to third. Ohtani, by the way, went 2 for 5 for the day.

Cobb had pitched a terrific game for Los Angeles before being lifted after seven innings, replaced by southpaw Tony Watson. The veteran starter had shut the Athletics out on three hits and wo walks. He struck out eight. He did this on 101 pitches, 58 strikes. For the ninth, Raisel Iglesias took over for Watson, who had retired the A’s in order in his one inning of work, and did the same in his.

The series and the homestand will end tomrrow. The Athletics plan to pitch Cole Irvin (3-6, 3.92) against José Quintana (0-3, 7.92), both of them southpaws.