Oakland A’s leftfielder Chad Pinder gets in the leftfield corner to put the squeeze on the baseball hit by the Boston Red Sox Francy Codero in the top of the sixth inning at the Oakland Coliseum on Fri, Jun 3, 2022 (AP News photo)
Boston. 7. 10. 0
Oakland. 2. 6. 0
Friday, June 3, 2022
By Lewis Rubman
OAKLAND–In yesterday’s Boston Globe, Alex Speier summed up the status of tonight’s visitors to the Coliseum. He wrote,
“June arrived with a sobering reality check. At 23-27, the Red Sox entered Wednesday night’s game against the Reds with the sixth-worst record in the American League, closer to the last-place Orioles than any team currently in a playoff spot.”
The Sox’ hopes of getting to .500 over a seven-game homestand against two last-place teams — the Orioles and Reds — had vanished. One thing the Sox can have a chin up on is they got offensive help including a key home run from the Sox Xander Bogaerts in a 7-2 romp over the Oakland A’s in front of 17, 852 fans who mostly here to see the Sox.
As much as the Sox looked like an improved team in May compared with their poor early performance, they still played .500 ball. They will need significant improvement if they are to emerge as a legitimate contender.”
Speier was damning the Bosox with faint praise, but he also was offering a glimmer of hope to the Fenway Faithful that the ever decreasing number of Oakland fans might envy. The green and gold haven’t been a legitimate contender since the last days, or even weeks, of 2021.
And yet the Athletics are competitive. They have been competitive in almost every game they’ve played. 14 of their 53 contests going into today were decided by just one one run. That’s 26%. The total for games decided by two runs or less was 15, or 34%.
That’s competitive; it’s just not successful. They’re 4-10 in the single run margin encounters and 13-16 in those with a difference of two tallies or less. And they don’t win at home.
Boston played .500 ball in May; Oakland has played .500 ball on the road. So, Athletics baseball can be, and often is exciting, even if one of its perverse pleasures is discovering new ways for the team to blow its chances of winning.
Boston may have suffered the Curse of the Bambino. Perhaps there is a similar malediction at work here in Oakland, but the only Curse of the Coliseum of which I’m aware is being played out in press releases, board hearings, and negotiations with Las Vegas.
The starting pitchers for this evening presented some interesting similarities and differences. Both of them are right handers; both of them are pretty run of the mill. Before today opposing batters were hitting .247 against Nathan Eovaldi this season. James Kaprielien’s OBA was .245.
A few years ago that would have been adequate; this year, with the MLB-wide batting slump, it’s somewhat less so. Their game time won-lost records and earned run averages, however, certainly were different. The Sox’ starter was 2-2,3.77 while Oakland sent Kaprielian to the mound with a record of 0-2,5.93. Their histories before 2022 also diverge.
The 32 year old Eovaldi broke into the majors in 2011 with the Dodgers and was 61-65, 4.19. He has undergone two Tommy John surgeries, and only two other players have started more big league games than he has with a medical history like that. This was his 11th start of the season, a category in which he is team leader.
His fastball averaged 96.2 mph between his first appearance in the show and the end of last season, a period in which he pitched for five teams. He has an extensive and honorable post season record, including a 97 pitch relief stint in the 12th-17th frames in the third game of the 2018 World Series. In those six innings he gave up just one run, and it was unearned.
He then surrendered a walk off homer to Max Muncy in the 18th. Kaprielian, on the other hand, is 28 years old, and a difference of four years is significant in baseball. The A’s are the only team he’s pitched for in the bigs, and there’s nothing in his achievements so far that made him stand out, even to the extent that Eovaldi does.
Tonight, then, it was no Roger Clemmens-Dave Stewart match up. Nor was Mo Vaughn or Big Popi slugging it out with Hendu and Bash Brothers. Not even Manny being Manny. It was two historic franchises that had fallen on bad times doing what they could with what they had, a group that, by the way, included JD Martinez, who was leading the majors in batting average, and Rafael Devers, MLB leader in hits, total bases, and doubles.
It was a close game until the middle innings and wasn’t a blow out until the last episode. Boston led 4-0 in the eighth, but when that inning was over, the A’s had closed the gap to 4-2.The final score was 10-7in favor of the team from the Hub (Sox).
Kaprielian took the loss, followed on the hill by Parker Markel, Austin Pruitt, Sam Selman, Domingo Acevedo,and Sam Moll. Oakland’s starter now has a record of 0-3,6.06.
Jed Lowrie hit a two out double in the A’s first, and the Red Sox threatened in the second, but no one crossed the plate until Xander Bogaerts drove a 92mph four seamer 389 feet deep into left field to put the Bosox ahead 1-0 in the top of the fourth.
It was the sixth round tripper and 24th RBI of the year for Boston’s shortstop. Before the inning ended, Kaprielian walked Alex Verdugo and Franchy Cordero whacked a double to right to double the visitors’ lead.
Oakland reacted in their half of the fourth with a single to right by Ramón Lauireano, who advanced to second on a wild pitch thrown to Lowrie, who eventually struck out.
Seth Brown’s single to center moved Laureano up another base, and Brown’s steal of second put the tying run in scoring position. Andrus then flew out to right, and Pinder grounded out to short, and Oakland still trailed by two.
When Kaprielien plunked Alex Verdugo with an 88 mph slider with Martínez on first and one down in the sixth, the A’s starter was through throwing for the evening. Parker Markel relieved him and yielded a resounding double off the left field wall to Trevor Story that again doubled Boston’s advantage, driving in both runners.
Those runs were charged to Kaprielian, whose line read 5-1/3 innings pitched, four runs, all earned, on five hits, two walks, one hit batter. He struck out one batter and surrendered one homer. Of his 87 pitches, 49 counted as strikes.
Tyler Danish took over mound duties for the Bay State team in the bottom of the seventh. Eovaldi had done a good job in his six frames on the bump, shutting out the home team on four hits, a walk, and a wild pitch. while striking out eight. Of his 93 offerings, 62 qualified as strikes. He got the win, improving his record to 3-2,3.41.
When Danish walked Cristián Pache to lead off the home eighth, manager Alex Cora pulled Danish and sent in Matt Strahm to face Kemp. Kotsay countered by having Sheldon Neuse pinch hit. Strahm struck him out swinging but issued a full count free pass to Laureano, bringing DH Lowrie to the plate with two on and one down.
Lowrie was batting from the right side, where his average was .194. But he came through with a sharp double to left, cutting Boston’s lead to 4-2. Christian Bethancourt was announced as a pinch hitter for Brown, and Boston reacted by sending John Schriber in to pitch to him.
Bethancourt looked at a third strike, leaving the A’s hopes for a comeback to Elvis Andrus. With a 2-2 count on him, Lowrie took third on a wild pitch. Andrus then walked, but Chad Pinder grounded out to second, and that was that.
Boston responded to those signs of life from the Oakland bats by notching three runs in the top of the ninth, cashing in on Domingo Acevedo’s wildness, which he manifested by walking and then hitting the first two batters he faced.
After he retired Hernández, Acevedo was lifted for Sam Moll, who gave up run producing doubles to Devers and Bogaerts.
Ryan Brasier preserved the Sox´five run margin by setting down the bottom third of the Oakland lineup on nine pitches.
The series will continue over the weekend, with Oakland sending its top two pitchers to the mound. Paul Blackburn (5-1,2.15) and Frankie Montás (2-5,3.20) will start, in that order, against Nick Pivetta (4-4,3.95) and Rich Hill (1-3,4.85) respectively Both the Saturday and Sunday games are scheduled to start at 1:07.
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