Cleveland Guardians’ Owen Miller, left, scores ahead of the ball as Oakland Athletics catcher Austin Allen, right, waits for the throw after a double hit by Richie Palacios in the top of the ninth inning at the Oakland Coliseum on Sat Apr 30, 2022 (AP News photo)

By Jeremiah Salmonson

The Oakland A’s (10-7) were back in action on Saturday afternoon against the Cleveland Guardians (9-12). On Friday, the A’s took a loss in the closest of margins by the final of 9-8. On Sunday, they hopes to turn the tide. The A’s were unable to make enough adjustments on Saturday and fell again to the Guardians 3-1 in Oakland.

Unlike the game on Friday, Saturday’s game saw much less offense on display and much more solid pitching. Cleveland scored their first run in the fourth inning on a Andres Gimenez single to center that scored Oscar Mercado.

The A’s scored their first run in the fifth inning. One of the best players from Friday night, Sheldon Neuse, was also the first to get the A’s on the board Saturday. Neuse, hit a long drive to center field off starter Shane Bieber to tie the ball game. It was the second home run of the year for Neuse and his 13th RBI.

The starters in the ball game each pitched really well. For the A’s Cole Irvin threw six innings of one run baseball allowing six hits with two walks and four strikeouts. On the Guardians side, Shane Bieber threw seven innings of seven hit one run baseball striking out seven and walking only one.

The rest of the runs for the Guardians both came in the ninth inning as Richie Palacios doubled home Owen Miller and Andres Gimenez to make the score 3-1. The A’s got a double from Elvis Andrus in the ninth inning but nothing more and lost the game by the final of 3-1. Emmanuel Clase got the save which was his fourth of the year.

The A’s will be back at it trying to salvage the final game of the three game series on Sunday at 1:07 PM PST in Oakland. Triston McKenzie goes for Cleveland (0-2 ERA 3.71) for Oakland James Kaprielian (0-0 ERA 0.00).