Boston 3 – 6 – 1
Oakland 2 – 3 – 0. Ten innings
By Lewis Rubman
Friday July 2, 2021
OAKLAND–During the last few pre-COVID seasons, the countdown to the All-Star break included watching the A’s creep upward towards .500. This year, it again includes watching the team approach the break-even mark, only this time it’s from above. How long the decline in Oakland´s performance will last and what its consequences will be are vexing questions that will take time and, as Giants fans of the 2010 vintage would say, torture to resolve.
But today, the struggle.
The Boston Red Sox, leading all of the American League and second only to San Francisco in all of MLB in winning percentage, brought a seven game winning streak with them to the Coliseum for a three game series with the faltering green and gold this evening. The Sox sent southpaw Eduardo Rodríguez to the mound. His 6-4, 5.83 record was not prepossessing, but you have to take into account that he missed all of last season and that he went 15-6, 3.81 in 2019.
Nonetheless, we’re half way through 2021, and Rodríguez has not looked good. Last Sunday, in his previous start, he threw five scoreless frames against the Yankees at Fenway but then surrendered a home run too Aaron Judge with a runner on base and no outs in sixth.
He finished up that inning without giving up another run and came out the winner by a score of 9-2. That victory put the Sox in first place in the AL East, a position they haven’t yet relinquished. His best game against Oakland was in 1996, when he pitched an eight inning one hitter in the Coliseum, with Marcus Semien’s two out single in the eighth breaking up the no-hitter.
Rodríguez’s lifetime numbers going into today were 57-35, 4.21, and his entry in the Bosox’ media guide contains the ominous notation that over the 2018 and 2019 campaigns his team had a higher winning percentage of games he started than the team of any other pitcher in the majors, .789. (Gerritt Cole and Clayton Kershaw ran second and third, respectively).
Oakland countered with Frankie Montás (7-7, 4.32). The Athletics starter has had moments of brilliance this season, but he’s also suffered several meltdowns. He pitched respectably in his last outing, which was last Saturday at Oracle Park, but lasted only five innings, over the course of which he gave up two earned runs on two hits in a contest that the A’s eventually lost in 10 innings. He went 5-2/3 innings tonight, but also gave up two earned runs, and the A’s lost in 10 innings.
Montás set down the first six Red Sox he faced batters he faced.. He did this with a little help from his daring and resourceful outfield, with Tony Kemp making a leaping grab of Alex Verdugo’s foul at the wall of the left field corner in the first and Ramón Laureano racing deep to the xfinity sign in center and, with an elegant jump, hauling down Hunter Renfro’s bid for at least extra bases in the second.
Montás lost his aura of invincibility in the third when he clipped lead off man Christian Vásquez with a 96 mph sinker and then uncorked a wild pitch fast ball to Danny Santana. The A’s started regained his poise and coaxed infield grounders out of the next two Bosox. Danny Santana hit the first to the Lowrie at second, which enabled Vázquez to take third.
The next was a sharp shot to the mound that Montás grabbed in time for his throw to Olson to retire the batter, Michael Chavis, at first. After walking Hernández, Montás retired Alex Verdugo on a harmless grounder to Lowrie.
Oakland´s only threat in the first three innings came in the second frame came on two balls hit to the infield. Marwin González´s throw to first on Chad Pinder´s lead off grounder drew Santana, and, with Pinder on second and two down, Xander Bogaerts made a nifty catch of Frank Schwindel´s sharp bounder into the hole between second and third to save the run that otherwise would have puet the Á’s in the lead. Home plate umpire Stu Scheurwater then gave Rodríguez a hand by calling Kemp out a what looked like a high third strike.
In the fourth, Bogaerts started things for the team from the hub by drawing a full count walk. He scored when Kemp decided to make a diving catch of Rafael Devers´sinking liner to left. Kemp couldn’t come up with ball, and Laureano wasn’t backing him up.
The resulting double put Boston ahead, 1-0, with a runner in scoring position and no outs. Once again, Montás stayed cool. He got his next three opponents on infield ground outs without even allowing Devers to get past second base.
The Bosox added to their lead in the fifth with a lead off single to center by Santana and a hit batter Chavis. It looked as if Montás might pull off another Houdini when Hernández hit into a nifty 3-6-3 double play, but Verdugo punished him with a single to center that drove in Santana. Bogaerts’ strike out came three pitches too late.
Montás was in hot water again in the sixth. Devers started it with a ground ball to shallow right. Andrus took it in the shift and sent a soft throw to first that Devers beat out.
Then Renfroe hit a sharp shot to the right of Andrus, now playing in his regular position at short, that went into left field for a single and put runners on first and second with nobody out. Montás got González to hit into a 3-6 force out, and now there were runners on the corners with one down. Vázquez popped to first, and now there were two down.
Then, with Santana at bat, González stole second. Santana followed that with a walk, JB Windelken. followed Montás to the mound and saved his bacon with one pitch, a curve ball that Chavis popped into Murphy´s mitt on the first base side of the plate.
Montás´s line was 5-2/3 innings pitched, two runs, both earned, allowed on five hits, three walks, two hit batters, and a wild pitch. He threw 95 pitches, 57 for strikes.
Wendelken stayed on in the seventh and was the beneficiary of a spectacular play by Kemp, again in the foul territory of the left field corner. He run into and bounced off the fence to grab and hold on to Hernández´s towering fly ball. Pinder rounded out the inning by making a sliding catch of Bogaerts´sinking liner to right.
Rodríguez lasted six innings, during which he quieted the A’s bats, holding them to one hit and two walks. He threw 89 pitches, 57 of them strikes.
His replacement, Garrett Whitlock, wasn’t as effective. After retiring the first two Athletics he faced, he threw Lowrie a 95 mph sinker that rose from the A’s second baseman’s bat to travel over the right field scoreboard for his eighth home run and 35th RBI, narrowing the gap between the teams to 2-1. Whitlock remained in the game through the eighth.
After pitching 1-1/3 perfect innings, Wendelken gave way to Jake Diekman in the eighth. Devers hit him hard, sending Laureano to the center field warning track to haul down his blast. Renfroe hit him hard to left, and González to right. All three balls were caught. After that, it was Sergio Romo who tried to keep Oakland´s deficit at one run in the top of the ninth. He did it with dispatch, on two fly balls and a strike out.
Alex Cora called on his closer, Matt Barnes, who entered the game second in saves for the AL with 18 and with more strike outs than any other big league releliever, 59. He hadn’t allowed an earned run in his last six appearances.
Until Elvis Andrus led off the ninth a home run to straightaway center field. That game tying blast was his first round tripper of the year. It came on a 2-1 count and off a 95 mph four seamer. Barnes was impermeable for the rest of the inning.
The tenth frame started with Lou Trivino on the mound for Oakland and Michael Chavis on second for Boston. Trivino broke Hernández´s bat with his first pitch, and ball dropped into right for a run scoring single. The inning ended with a double play into the shift, Chapman to Andrus to Olson, and Trivino’s strike out of Bogaerts. The run, of course, was uearned.
Adam Ottavino faced Lowrie with Seth Brown on second to start the A’s last chance tenth. Lowrie punched a single through the shift into left, and third base coach Mark Kotsay gave Brown stop sign att third. Skye. Bolt came in to pinch run for Lowrie at first with Sean Murphy at bat with runners on the corners and no outs.
Murphy hit fly to medium deep center. This time Kotsay sent the runner home. Hernández caught the ball and made a perfect throw home to. complete the double play. Schwindel´s fly out to left was anti climatic.
The win went to Barnes, who also got a blown save. His record now stands at 4-2, 2,75, Ottavino earned his sixth save, and Trivino got the tough loss.
They go at it again Saturday afternoon at 4:15. It will be Cole Irvin (6-7, 3.64) going for the green and gold and Garrett Richards (4-5,4.96) for the Red Sox.
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