Photo credit: @Athletics
Chicago White Sox: 2 | 8 | 0
Oakland Athletics: 10 | 13 | 0
By Lewis Rubman
OAKLAND — At 7:46 in the evening of April 17, 1968, after the players on both teams had been introduced, Miss California had paraded onto the field, Governor Ronald Reagan had thrown out the first ball (and was booed when he asked the crowd if they’d paid their taxes), Lew Krausse did something no one else ever had done; he threw a pitch in a major league game in Oakland. Unfortunately for the A’s, the performance of Baltimore’s Dave McNally, Krause’s opposite number, was a better one. He held the A’s to two hits over nine innings, a solo home run to Rick Monday and a pinch hit single by Tony LaRussa, to defeat the home town team, 4-1. The paid attendance was 50,164.
There was no paid attendance tonight because the Oakland Athletics—four-time world champions, often bloodied, but still, 50 years later, unbowed—celebrated the golden anniversary of that inaugural contest by issuing free tickets to their game against the Chicago White Sox to as many guests as the now venerable Coliseum could hold. 46,028 showed up and watched Lew Krausse throw out the ceremonial first pitch, after which the A’s, resplendent in their 1968 uniforms took on the pale hose, dressed in natty blue 1968 unis.
Starting for the A’s was Trevor Cahill, who, like the Coliseum and the team that calls it home, has seen better days and hopes (a if concrete structure can hope) to see them return. The 30-year-old right handed hurler, pitched for Oakland in 2009-2011, going 18-8, 2.97. Since then, he’s plied his trade for the Diamondbacks, Braves, Cubs, Padres, and Royals. His lifetime major league record is 73-79, .411 (40-35, 3.1 with the A’s). He has been battling injuries for the last two seasons and was on the DL five times in the last two seasons, not counting tonight, his first start in an Oakland uniform since September 27, 2011. If Cahill didn’t take us back to 1968, he at least took us back to 2010; he was magnificent.
He got off to a rocky beginning, walking Yoan Moncada to start the game, but closing out the frame by setting down the next three batters to keep the White Sox off the board.
The A’s gave Cahill a five-run cushion early on, scoring five runs in their half of the first on Jed Lowrie home run over the right field scoreboard, Mark Canha’s bases loaded single, which drove in Khris Davis and Matt Olson, and Stephen Pescotti’s double to center, which plated Matt Chapman, who’d walked, and Canha.
With a lead like this to work with, Cahill had no trouble mowing down the Chicago line up. Working effectively on the basis of two seam fast balls and knuckle curves, he pitched seven complete scoreless innings, allowing only five hits and no walks, while throwing 92 pitches. In only one inning, the third, did the A’s mounds man allow more than one base runner.
Throughout the game, the A’s just kept tacking on tallies. They followed their five-run first with a three-run fourth when Canha, who had hit an infield single, and Piscotty, who had driven a double to left through a drawn-in infield, scored on a single by Jonathan Lucroy, was was advanced to third on a double by Matt Joyce, and then scored on Semien’s sacrifice fly to right.
Lucroy’s single drove Chicago’s hapless starter, Miguel González from the box. He was followed by a parade of four relievers who managed to hold the Oaklanders to only two more runs in the remaining five innings of play. They scored those runs in the eight off Bruce Rendón, who walked Chapman, who advanced to third on Canha’s hooking double down the left field line, and scored on Pescotty’s sacrifice liner to right. Canha’s plated the A’s last run when Lucroy’s single to center, his third hit in four at bats, drove him in.
Melvin brought in Ryan Dull, just up from Nashville, to replace Cahill in the eighth. He surrendered Chicago’s only two runs on a blast into the right field seats by Moncada with Omar Narváez on base. Narváez had struck out and reached first because both he and Lucroy missed Dull’s pitch. Dull ended up striking out four White Sox batters in his one inning of work.
Right handed Lou Trevino made his major league debut in the ninth, pitching in and out of trouble, and emerging unscathed, or at least unscored upon.
Daniel Mengden’s performance last night and Cahill’s tonight as we are hopeful about signs that the A’s rotation, anchored by Sean Manaea, is becoming a force to be reckoned with. In spite of Dull’s four strike out inning and Trevino’s 98+ mph fastball (that’s a redundancy), the bullpen remains a source of uncertainty.
Still, the Athletics now own a record of 8-10, which is approaching respectability. They take on the Chisox at 12:30 tomorrow afternoon with Carson Fulmer (0-1,4.66) joining for the Chicagoans and Andrew Triggs (1-0,2.87), another bright light in the rotation, taking the mound for the hometown team.
