By Morris Phillips
Ubaldo Jimenez was as good in the nightcap, as Rich Hill was terrific in the opener of a doubleheader in Baltimore on Saturday.
For the A’s that meant a full day at the ballpark, and half the desired result, with their 8-1 win in the opener behind Hill, and a 5-2 loss in the nightcap in which Jimenez pitched a season-best eight innings, allowing just one walk.
In the Orioles’ win, Jimenez frustrated the A’s by spreading the eight singles and one double he allowed across the full breadth of his eight innings of work. Half of those singles came off the bat of Josh Reddick, who had seven hits in the doubleheader and saw his batting average leap from .260 to .301.
But with Reddick aboard each time, Jimenez stopped Oakland’s 4-5-6 hitters–Khris Davis, Chris Coghlan and Billy Butler–with all three going 0 for 4 for the afternoon. Manager Bob Melvin inserted Coghlan and Butler into his lineup for the second game to rest Stephen Vogt and Danny Valencia, but saw his decision to bat the pair in the middle of his lineup backfire with Jimenez methodically playing damage control.
While Coghlan (.148) and Butler (.195) saw their averages dip below .200, Khris Davis had an even more frustrating day at the park, going 0 for 9 while hitting fourth in both games, right behind the red hot Reddick.
The Orioles already led 5-0 when Jimenez allowed a leadoff double to Yonder Alonso in the fifth. Josh Phegley knocked in Alonso, and later scored from third on Reddick’s infield hit. But those would be the only two runs the A’s would manage as Jimenez put up three more zeros, before giving way to closer Zach Britton in the ninth, who earned his seventh save.
“He was solid, obviously,” manager Buck Showalter said of Jimenez. “How many walks did he have, one? He dialed up something we needed.”
The 32-year old veteran hadn’t been nearly as effective in his four previous starts as he was against the A’s. Jimenez allowed 15 earned runs, while issuing 15 walks in his previous four starts, losing three. But on Saturday night, he worked smart, starting 23 of 32 batters with a strike and needing just 104 pitches to get through eight.
“The walks hurt,” Jimenez said. “Every time I walk a guy, it seems like they find a way to score.”
A’s leadoff batter Billy Burns had a rough go in the nightcap as well, getting caught stealing in the third, and grounding into an inning-ending double play in the seventh.
In the makeup of Friday’s rainout, played in front of a sparse crowd of fewer than 15,000, Rich Hill continued his renaissance, holding the Orioles to one hit over the first five innings to earn the win. Hill ran into trouble in the sixth, but Baltimore managed just one run on the journeyman pitcher, and reliever Ryan Dull.
Dull relieved Hill with a run in and pair of runners aboard, and dangerously walked Nolan Reimold to load the bases. But Dull recovered by striking out Jonathan Schoop to end the inning.
Hill confounded his former team with his signature curve, surviving three walks and a hit batter, by striking out five, and allowing just two hits. The 36-year old Hill found himself in familiar surroundings, having pitched for Baltimore in 2009, and having shut out the Orioles in September, his revelatory month for the Red Sox that earned him a two-year deal with the A’s.
After the game, Showalter offered a detailed description of Hill’s 12-6 curve that robbed the Orioles’ hitters of their aggressiveness despite knowing exactly what to expect from the big right hander.
“It’s one of those that comes out the hand… I don’t want to say loopy, but he’s got real late finish,” the manager said. “We knew what he was going to do. I think he was fourth or fifth in baseball in strikeouts per nine innings, which is hard to do in the American League.”
The A’s backed Hill with a dink and dunk attack that produced 15 hits, including nine singles against a frustrated Mike Wright, who took the loss. Oakland tallied single runs in the second, third and fifth, before putting up three in the sixth.
In that frame, Dylan Bundy relieved Wright, and he and catcher Matt Wieters got crossed up on a passed ball that allowed Coco Crisp to score from third, while two other Oakland baserunners advanced. After Bundy retired Burns, Jed Lowrie’s single plated Alonso and Marcus Semien.
Semien capped the A’s scoring in the eighth with a two-run homer, his eighth.
The A’s conclude their series in Baltimore on Sunday with Kendall Graveman facing Baltimore’s Chris Tillman at 10:35am PST.
