The Philadelphia Phillies Kyle Schwarber gets all of Oakland A’s pitcher Frankie Montas’ pitch for a first inning home run at Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia on Fri Apr 8, 2022 (AP News photo)

Opening Day Tough For Oakland Losing 9-5

By Barbara Mason

This has seemed like an extraordinarily long off-season and finally the lock-out is over and we are celebrating the opening day of baseball across the league.

Friday afternoon the Oakland A’s opened their season against the Phillies in Philadelphia. While we will still see some familiar faces there will some favorites that have moved on to other teams. Manager Bob Melvin has moved on to the San Diego Padres.

We will miss Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Mark Canha, Chris Bassitt and most recently pitcher Sean Manea. Free agent Starling Marte has also left the team. Still onboard for the A’s are Tony Kemp, Sean Murphy, Chad Pinder, Seth Brown, Elvis Andres, Jed Lowrie and Stephen Piscotty.

We will miss Ramon Laureano for the first 27 games as he completes an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs. The A’s have welcomed back catcher Stephen Vogt another familiar face. So a lot of change for the team and their fans. Frankie Montas was on the mound for Oakland in this game.

The Phillies took a quick first inning lead with a home run from Kyle Schwarber and the 1-0 lead would hold until Philadelphia added to their lead in the third inning. This would turn out to be a very tough inning for pitcher Frankie Montas as he allowed hits from Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins and Didi Gregorius extending the Philly lead to 5-0 in the third inning.

It was a jittery start to the season for the A’s. Frankie Montas gave up six hits and had six strike outs. Montas gave up five runs in this 9-5 loss. He would pitch through five innings before being relieved by Jake Lemoine The A’s got within one run trailing 6-5 in the seventh inning when Seth Brown homered bringing Murphy and Pinder home.

The Phillies would score again in the seventh and eighth innings putting an end to the Oakland comeback. After the year that Frankie Montas had last year he will need a lot more in his next outing. The team will be relying heavily on him.

There was some frustration and some optimism and it all ended with an opening day loss for the A’s. Oakland will be back on the field tomorrow in a second game with Philadelphia. Oakland lefthander Cole Irvin will be on the mound for that game meeting his former team. For the Phillies righthander Kyle Gibson at Citizens Bank Ballpark. First pitch is scheduled for 1:05.