Oakland Athletics fans hang signs at RingCentral Coliseum to protest the team’s potential move to Las Vegas and to call for team owner John Fisher to sell the team during a baseball game between the Athletics and the Cincinnati Reds on Fri Apr 28, 2023 (AP News photo)

Cincinnati. 032 000 312. – 11. 16. 1

Oakland. 100 002 202. – 7. 11. 2

Time: 2:56

Attendance: 6,423

Friday, April 28, 2023

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–Friday night’s solid 11-7 defeat of the A’s at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds in the Coliseum brought back the sort of bittersweet memories we can expect as fans of the A’s undergo the long agony that precedes their move to Las Vegas. Not for nothing is one of the Spanish slang expressions to for dying is “to move to the other barrio.”

1988-1990 was one of the golden (or at least gilded) age of the now moribund Oakland franchise. It also was an age fraught with mixed emotions, especially, but not exclusively in the microcosm that is baseball. The ’88 Athletics won the AL pennant but got swept by the Dodgers, perhaps because Kirk Gibson’s walk off homer in game one destroyed Oakland’s morale the way the 1954 Cleveland Indians were demoralized by Willie Mays’s catch of Vic Wertz’s blast in the opener of that year’s series.

The A’s swept the Giants in ’89 in an October classic that was over shadowed by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The resumption of the series after a week’s delay contributed to the bay area’s recovery and return to what passes for normal around here. But the 1990 World Series was all about baseball, and Cincinnati won it in four games. Oakland didn’t even make it to the ALDS again until 2000.

The Cincinnati team that visited the Coliseum tonight was no Big Red Machine. And its starting pitcher, Luis Cessa, a 31 year old righty who brought an 0-3, 10.80 record to work with him. He didn’t need to be.

The A’s sent a well travelled veteran, 34 year old Drew Ruckinski, fresh off the injured list and making his fist appearance of the season, KO the mound. His baggage included a lifetime MLB record of 4-4, 5.33, but the last time he had appeared in the show was 2018. He spent the last four seasons toiling for the NC Dinos in the Korea Baseball Organization, where he went 53-36, 3.06, including marks of 19-5, 3.05 in 2020 and 10-12, 2.97 in ’22.

That year he either led the league or was second on the list in starts, strike outs, inning pitched, and strike out to walks ratio. On the other hand, only two pitchers allowed more hits than he did, and only three unleashed more wild pitches.

The Athletics jumped to an early lead on back to back to back singles by Ryan Noda, Brent Rooker, and Shea Langeliers. Cincy answered with three runs in the top of the second. It would have been less if Kemp and Esteury Ruíz hadn’t bumped into each other on Henry Ramos’s fly to left center that should have been caught but fell to the grass for a safety.

It would have more if Ruíz hadn’t mowed Ramos down at third when he tried to advance on Nick Senzel’s single that drove in Jake Fraily. In any case, the Reds led 3-1 after an inning and a half.

They didn’t stop there. Jace Petereson made two errors at third, one throwing and one fielding. Just the fielding error would have been enough to make both runs that Cincinnati scored in the frame unearned. Fraley, who picked up a couple of RBI with his second round tripper of the year wouldn’t have come to bat if Peterson had handled Spencer Steer’s hard hit drive down the line properly.

Still, it was 5-1 after two and a half frames were in the book. It would have been more if an inning later if the Friedl had violated the slide rule at second base, resulting in an inning ending double play. The Redlegs challenged the invocation of the rule, but New York ruled that it was correct.

The score still stood at 5-1 in the top of the sixth when Sam Long was called on to get the final out with a runner on second and number two batter Friedl at the plate. He got Friedl to foul out to third, preventing further damage.

Rucinski had lasted 5-2/3 innings and allowed five runs, two of which were unearned. He struck out one and walked one. His pitch count reached 89, 56 if them strikes.

Oakland’s bats came alive briefly in the bottom of the sixth with a single to right by Noda, followed by a walk to Rooker, and a bases clearing triple to center off the bat of Langeliers that closed the gap between the teams to 5-3 and spelled the end of Cessa’s tenure on the mound, replaced by another righty, Derek Law, who restored order.

Cessa threw 71 pitches, 50 of them for strikes, over five innings, in which all three runs he yielded were earned. They came on eight hits and a walk, and he recorded a pair of strike outs.

Senezel’s two on, out double in the top of the seventh and Stuart Fairchild’s seeing eye single to left restored the Red’s four run margin and tacked another on for good measure.

After the crowd, if you can call it that, finished singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” Noda took the ball out of the park, driving in Ruíz, who had singled and stolen second, and driving a hanging curve ball 427 feet into the right field seats.

The Athletics’ first sacker’s third dinger of the season also drove Law to the showers and brought Buck Farmer in from the pen with the Rheinlanders still leading, now by a score of 8-5. A hit batter and a walk later, Jordán Díaz was at bat, representing the potential tying run. Farmer struck him out to end the inning.

Jonathan India walked to open the visitors’ eighth, and Friedl sacrificed him over to second, which ended Farmer’s chores for the evening. Shintaro Fujinami made his second appearance as a reliever and looked sharp striking out Spencer Steel, but India stole third in the process and then scored when Tyler Stephenson beat out a slow nubber between the mound and the plate for a single.

Fraley forced him out at second on a grounder to short, and Lucas Sims had a 9-5 lead to work with when he came in to hurl the eighth for the visitors. He put the home team down in order.

Fujinami looked uncomfortable on the mound in the ninth, and he was wild. He walked the first three batters he faced before José Barrero lashed a vicious liner to Smith at short, who was playing drawn in still managed to hold on to the ball. But Smith’s heroics were undone by Fujinami’s control problems.

A wild pitch to India moved everyone up a notch, with Ramos crossing the plate. India’s single to left brought in Senzel, the recipient of Fujinami’s second base on balls. Sam Moll then replaced Fujinami and retired Friedl and Steer.

Fernando Cruz was given the assingment of preserving Cincy’s 11-5 lead in the ninth. He didn’t quite succeed. Rooker’s eighth HR of the season, a no doubter that travelled 392 feet into the left field seats with Noda, who had walked, on base made it 11-7. But that was it.

Cessa got the win, making hin 1-3, 9.55. Rucinki took the loss and now stands at 0-1, 4.76.

A’s Fireballer Kyle Muller (0-2, 7.23) will face the Reds and Hunter Greene (0-1, 3.52) tomorrow, Saturday, at 1:07.