The Kansas City Royals Hunter Dozier is greeted at the plate by teammates after scoring against the Oakland A’s in the seventh inning on Thu Jun 10, 2021 at the Oakland Coliseum (AP News photo)

Kansas City 6 – 10 – 1

Oakland 1 – 3. – 1

By Lewis Rubman

Thursday, June 10, 2021

OAKLAND–Right handed throwing Frankie Montás, who started today’s game for Oakland, is one of the A’s talented crew of hurlers for whom the club has great expectations that are yet to be realized. He took the mound this evening with a record of 6-5, 4.52, a WHIP of 1.41, and an opponents’ BA of .273. To put that in perspective, the A’s came to the park having won 37 games against 26 defeats.

Their batting average was .232, and the opposition was batting .248 against them. Montás got off to an horrific start this season, losing 10-3 to the Dodgers on April 5, when he surrendered seven earned runs on as many hits in only 2-2/3 innings of work. He went 2-2, 6.20 for that month and a respectable 3-3, 3.18 in May.

He won his last start, six days ago against the Rockies, but gave up three runs, all earned, in his five innings of work. That performance needs to be taken with a grain of salt; Coors Field is a threat to any pitcher’s ERA.

Kansas City, sitting in the middle of the five team AL Central Division standings at 29-31, sent southpaw, nine year veteran, and former Athletic Mike Minor to the mound. He brought a record of 4-3, 4.34 with him. He throws mostly fast balls and sliders, which he mixes with the occasional curve and change up.

It was the late innings the top of the seventh and eighth that saw the Royals score three times in each frame and got them over the hump for a 6-1 win over Oakland.

The first four innings featured some exciting fielding by the A’s. Montás made a pretty glove-handed pickup and toss to first to nab Nlicky López to start the third frame, and Matt Chapman made a leaping catch of Salvador Pérez’s hot liner smashed over his head down the foul line for the second out of the third.

Jed Lowrie, tonight’s Oakland DH, injected some offensive pizzazz into the contest by leading off the home fourth with a 398 foot blast that went into the left field seats for his fifth round tripper of the season. It came on a 2-2 count and off a 90 mph four seamer.

The local nine has a troubling tendency to run into outs. Stephen Piscotty fell victim to it in the bottom of the fifth, when he laced a single to right and tried to stretch it into a double. He was caught, right fielder Hunter Dozier to first baseman Santana to Nicky López.

Although Montás allowed a Texas League single to Santana in ethe first inning and a weak infield single to Kevin Gutiérrez in the second, it wasn’t until the top of the seventh that he yielded a legitemate hit, a lead off single to center by Andrew Benintendi. And then the roof fell in, through no fault of Montás, who still was pitching beautifully.

He struck out Pérez, but Jorge Soler was awarded first on a catcher´s interference call. Hunter Dozier hit a hard grounder to Chapman, which took a bad hop and went for a game tying double and putting Dozier and Soler in scoring position. Then Gutiérrez singled to center through a drawn in infield to give the Royals a 3-1 lead and put an end to Montás’s night’s work.

He had pitched 6-1/3 innings, a season’s high for him, and allowed three runs, two of them earned but none of them deserved. He allowed five hits, of which only Benintendi’s single and Dozier’s double were hard hit, and even that last one needed a bad hop to escape being an inning ending double play.

He struck out eight and didn’t issue any walks. Of his 96 pitches, 64 were strikes. He got charged with the loss. Who says baseball is fair? Burch Smith got the last two outs to end the inning, giving way to Jesús Luzardo at the start of the KC eighth.

Benintendi did more damage to the Oakland cause by taking a first pitch Luzardo four seamer deep to center with two down in the eighth. Pérez followed that with double to right and scored moments later when Soler lofted a Luzardo change up over the left center field wall.

In the one inning Luzardo pitched, he gave up three runs on three hits, two of which were homers. He threw 25 pitches; 14 were considered strikes. Of course, that includes the ones on which the Royals hit a double and two round trippers. Cam Bedrosian closed out the game decorously, allowing one hit and nothing more.

When the A’s came to bat in their half of the disasterous eighth, they faced Scott Barlow. He put the A’s down 1-2-3,, striking out one. Greg Holland closed the game for the visitors, retiring the Athletics in order on eight pitches.

Minor, like Montás, had pitched a fine game, going seven inning and yielding but a single run, which was earned, on three hits, one of the for the distance. He struck out eight and walked one. 66 of his 106 pitches were strikes. He deserved the win, and he got it.

Only Houston’s 12-8 defeat by Boston kept the A’s in their tenuous position on top of the AL West.

The Athletics announced yesterday that they had reinstated Reymin Guduan, who had been pitching on a rehab assignment to Las Vegas, and designated him for assignment. He had appeared in 11 games with Oakland this season, without a decision, a save, or a blown save. His WHIP was 1.67, his ERA 6.28, and his opponents’ batting average .345 during his brief tenure with the big club.

The A’s and Royals will duke it out again tomorrow, Friday, evening at 6:40, with Cole Irvin (4-7,3.89) going against Brady Singer (3-5, 4.88).