Category: MLB

The Baltimore Orioles line up for the hive five post game congratulations following their win over the Oakland A’s Sat May 1, 2021 game at the Oakland Coliseum (photo from USA Today)

Baltimore 8 -10 – 0

Oakland 4 – 8. – 2

By Lewis Rubman

May 1, 2021

OAKLAND–The A’s started the season by losing seven straight games. They followed their first win by losing one more game and then going another 13 without a single defeat, giving them a record of 14-8. They ended the month at 16-11, a winning percentage of .593.

This represents an almost exact regression to the norm, since their totals for the last three seasons, including the truncated 2020 campaign, were 230-157, which comes to .594. So it would be reasonable to anticipate that we’ll see a season of ups and downs like those of the month we’ve just endured, although the swings might not be as dramatic as what we’ve seen so far. In other words, fasten your seat belts, folks, we’re in for a bumpy ride.

In this afternoon’s contest, Oakland didn’t have to contend with an opponent on the mound as intimidating as John Means, who almost completely mastered them last night. Instead they faced the veteran right hander Matt Harvey, making the 150th start of a big league career that has had its ups and downs. Recently, it’s taken a modest upturn.

His penultimate start resulted in his first win since July 13, 2019, when he still toiled for the LA Angels. His most recent start, one earned run in six innings against the Yankees, was, as the Orioles’ game notes point out, his first quality start since April 28, 2019 and marked the first time since July 13, 2018 that he’d notched consecutive wins.

Oakland countered with Jesús Luzardo, who, at 1-2, 5.40, has been tantalizing A’s fans with occasional displays of his undoubted, but inconsistently displayed, talent.

Both pitchers got through their first two frames with little difficulty. Then disaster struck the home town crew.

The top of the third was a travesty. The Orioles did a little bit to help their cause, but most of their runs were gifts from the A’s. Here’s a brief summary of the action:

D.J. Steward hit a bouncing ball wide of first that bounced off Seth Brown’s glove for an error.

Ramón Urías’s single sent Stewart to third.

Luzardo walked Cedric Mullins to load the bases with nobody out.

Austin Hayes singled to left, plating Steward and Urías. Hays advanced to second on the hit and to third on Matt Chapman’s (of all people!) errant relay throw to third.

Trey Mancini got a Texas League single that Elvis Andrus couldn’t catch up with in short left field, driving in Hays.

Maikel Franco singled to left, moving Mancini up a base.

Mancini and Franco moved up another notch on a wild pitch.

Pedro Severino fouled out to the catcher, Aramis García.

Mancini scored on Ryan Mountcastle’s sac fly to right. Franco moved on to third.

Franco scoredon another wild pitch.

Finally, Freddy Galvis flew out to center.

That was all Luzardo would pitch. The line for his three inning stint was six runs, evenly divided between earned and unearned, on five hits, two walks, and two wild pitches. He struck out two, and, of the 64 pitches he threw, 34 were strikes. He eventually was charged with the loss, his third against a lone win,. His ERA now stands at 5.79.

Luzardo was replaced by Deolis Guerra, who pitched two innings, allowing nothing but one walk before J.B. Windelken took his place to pitch the sixth.

Windelken wasn’t as effective as his predecesor. J.B. allowed a single to Freddy Galvis, after which D.J. Stewart deposited an 84 mph change up over the right field fence, 341 feet from home plate.

Down 8-0 with two out in the sixth, Oakland made a comeback of sorts, led by the two players who had committed costly errors in the fatidic third. Chapman singled to right and scored on Brown’s double to the same field, After Cole Sulser relived Harvey, Tony Kemp brought Brown home with the A’s second tally.

Harvey’s line ended up at two runs, both earned, on four hits and a walk in 5-2/3 innings of work. He delivered 90 pitches, 54 for strikes. He ended up getting the win, making him 3-1, 4.06 for the season.

Mark Canha continued the comeback, leading off the home seventh with his fourth home run of the season, this one off a 92 mph four seamer that he drove into the left field seats, just to the right of the foul pole. After Sulser walked Jeff Lowrie and struck out Laureano for the first out, the southpaw Tanner Scott was brought in to face Oakland’s DH, fellow lefty Mitch Moreland. Scott got both Moreland and Chapman out to preserve Baltimore’s 8-3 lead. Sulser’s 2/3 of an inning, in which he gave up a walk, a hit, and a run on 21 pitches, still left him with an enviable ERA of 1.08.

Oakland used two other relievers. Reymin Guduan and Sergio Romo threw a scoreless eighth and ninth, respectively, with Romo retiring the side in order. Guduan required a pitcher’s best friend after giving up a lead off single.

Laureano gave the A’s a last hurrah by blasting a 420 foot two out homer to left center in the bottom of the ninth, Too little, too late, but nice any way, and it made the final score look almost respectable.

The A’s will try to salvage a win out of this series when they send Sean Manaea (3-1, 2.83) against the Orioles and Bruce Zimmermann (1-3, 5.33) in a 1:07 battle of left handers.

The Oakland A’s starter Mike Fiers lasted six innings giving up all three Baltimore Orioles runs at the Oakland Coliseum on Fri Apr 30, 2021 (@athleticsnation photo)

Baltimore 3 – 8 – 0

Oakland 2 – 5 – 0

By Lewis Rubman

Apr 30, 2021 Friday

OAKLAND–The 16-10 A’s escaped from the House of Horrors-a half an hour’s stroll from that celebration of surrealism, the Salvador Dalí Museum, in St. Petersburg-with a split in their hard fought four game series against the Tampa Bay Rays, né Devil Rays.

To achieve this, they had to overcome Tampa Bay’s outstanding starting rotation and none too shabby bulllpen, their own mistakes, and the inexplicable calls of umpires Chad Fairchild and Brian Gorman, not to mention the abrasive imitatation grass that complements the overhead maze of rings and catwalks that make trying to catch fly balls at Tropicana field not just difficult but hazzardous, the incarnation of Dalí’s worst nightmares.

For al ofl that, Oakland went 4-3 on their working tour of the Chesapeake and Tampa Bays, returning to the shores of San Francisco Bay with a lead of two and a half games over the surprising Seattle Mariners for first place in the AL West.

It wasn’t any of the obvious menaces of the Trop’s architecture that inflicted the worst physical damage suffered by the Athletics in St. Pete. Hidden in the bowels of that excreciable edifice are batting cages. Before the final game of the series, Matt Olson, practicing the swing that had improved his offense to a team-leading BA of .296 and home run total of six, slammed a ball off the side of one of those cages.

The spheroid bounced back and hit him in the left eye. No bones were broken, but the A’s slick fielding slugger, who also is tied with Jed Lowrie for the team lead in RBI at 17, will be out of action for a while. Mitch Moreland started at first base in Olson’s stead tonight. Lowrie filled the DH spot for Moreland, and Tony Kemp took Lowrie’s usual place at second.

While the team was in Florida, the A’s announced Mike Fiers’ return to the active roster and, at least for the time being, the rotation. The mainstay of the Athletics’ starting mound core since he joined the team in 2018 toed the rubber to open tonight’s contest against the Orioles, the only team besides the Rays to have defeated the green and gold since April 8.

Starting for Baltimore was their ace, John Means, making his first appearance since he held the A’s to one run over 6-1/3 innings last Sunday in the game that snapped Oakland’s 13 game winning streak. That gave him a record of 2-0, 1.50 for the young season.

It wasn’t long before the A’s got another run off him. Sean Murphy, whose heroics behind and at the plate were instrumenetal in gaining the split in St. Petersburg, led off the home second with a wallop that landed in the right field seats, a few feet to the left of the foul line. That was home run number four and RBI number nine for the Oakland catcher.

Cedric Mullins got that back in the top of the third with a two out fly that also fell into the rilght field stands a few feet to the left of the foul pole for his fourth round tripper of the season. Austin Hays followed them with his third, a no doubter that landed between the left field foul line and the stairway over the Ring Central sign. The Birds tacked on another run.

In the fifth after number eight batter Chance Sisco’s lead off single to right was followed by Ramón Urías’s double to left. The top of the Baltimore batting order was able to push only Sisco home, on a grounder to second by Mullins, giving him his second RBI of the night.

Baltimore threatened to take command of the game with a lead off walk to D.J. Stewart, followed by a single to Ryan Montcastle. But the pitcher’s best friend came to Fiers’ aid when Río Ruíz hit a grounder up the middle that was fielded by Andrus in the shift and converted into a U6-3 DP. Pat Valaika ended the frame by flying out to Piscotty in short right field.

Means, all the while, was mowing down Oakland’s batters. Following Murphy’s homer, none of them reached base until Laureano dropped a single into center with two down in the sixth. He was stranded at first when Lowrie grounded out to second.

Six innings were enough work for Fiers. He threw 83 pitches (54 strikes), surrended six hits, two of which left the park, and two walks. He struck out three, and all three of his runs were earned. Deolis Guerra, who had pitched poorly in Baltimore but well in Tampa Bay, took over in the seventh and retired the side in order, striking out two in the process.

It was in the seventh that MItch Moreland broke the spell. With two outs and the bases empty (natch!), he blasted a 92 mph four seamer 406 feet over the fence, slighty to the right of dead center field.

Sergio Romo, pitching a 1-2-3 eighth, kept it a 3-2 game, although Laureano had to race to the warning track to capture Stewart’s drive that followed strike outs to Hays and Mancini.

Means didn’t come out for the eighth, having thrown 93 pitches, of which 63 were strikes. He gave up only two runs, both earned, three hits, two of which were round trippers, and a walk. He struck out nine. HIs replacement, Paul Fry, started off well, getting Andrus out with a bounder back to the mound, but then he walked Kemp, who stole second and then, one pitch later, advanced to third on a passed ball.

Fry struck Canha out, perhaps because the A’s left fielder had taken a strike to allow Kemp to swipe second. In any case, Fry was yanked, replaced by Travis Lakins, Sr., who walked Laureano but got Lowrie out on a fly to medium deep center. The score remained 3-2.

The top of the ninth provided a combination that brought a smile to the faces of the face-masked name freaks in the press box (or at least to one of us). Yusmeiro Petit was brought in to pitch, and calling the balls and strikes behind the plate was umpire Will Little.

It also provided an exciting example of Ramón Laureano’s extraordinary arm. Ryan Mounetcastle reached first on a broken bat Texas League single to right center. After Ruíz flew out to left, Pat Valaika laced a single to right. Mountcasttle tried to advance to third, and Laureano cut him down with a perfect strike to Chapman.

Murphy greeted César Valdéz, who came in to close the game in the bottom of the ninth, with a single to left. Vimael Machín came in to run for him and advanced to second on Chapman’s single to right. This brought Moreland, whose homer in his previous at bat had pulled the A’s to within a run, to the plate with the tying run in scoring position and the potential winning run on first with none out.

Moreland smacked a vicious line drive that was speared at third by Ruíz, who rifled a throw to shortstop Urías, covering second in the shift. Umpire Junior Valentine called Machín out for a rallly-killing double play. But a replay showed that the A’s pinch runner had gotten back in time, and so Oakland’s hopes remained alive. Seth Brown pinch hit for PIscotty and flew out to Mullins in right center, allowing Machín to move up to third. Valdéz and Andrus went to 3-2 before the A’s hopes died in Mullins glove in center field.

The win went to Means, who now is 3-0, 1.70. The loss was charged to Fiers, who stands and 0-1, 4.50. Valdéz got the save, his sixth out of seven opportunities.

The two teams will face off tomorrow afternoon at 1:07. The Birds will send right hander Matt Harvey (1-2,4.26) to the mound while the White Elephants will entrust their fate to lefty Jesús Luzardo (1-2, 5.40).