Tag: Justin Verlander

Verlander, Springer, and Altuve lead the Astros to another win over the A’s, 4-2

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By Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland A’s finished their seven-game road trip with a 3-4 record. They split the four-game series with the AL Central leader, the Minnesota Twins, and lost two out of three to the AL West leading Houston Astros. The Astros, behind their ace Justin Verlander beat the A’s 4-2 at Minute Maid Park on Wednesday afternoon.

The A’s scored the first run of the game in the first inning. Marcus Semien reached on a throwing error by Astros’ third baseman Alex Bregman. He scored on a Matt Olson single to right field. Josh Reddick committed a rare mistake, and that allowed Semien to score.

A’s starter Chris Bassitt was sharp as he retired the first seven hitters he faced. He struck out the last five. Astros catcher Robinson Chirons, who had tormented the A’s over the years, broke the spell with a double. He came around to score when George Springer blasted his 23rd of the year to put Houston ahead 2-1.

In the fifth, Bassitt plunked Chirinos on the hand to start the frame. Chirinos scored again when Jose Altuve hit his 15th of the season over the fence in center field. The Astros led 4-0.

The A’ added their second run of the game in the top of the ninth. Astros’ closer Roberto Osuna gave up a run. The A’s failed to score, and the game was over. Houston won 4-2.

Game Notes: Chris Bassitt gave the A’s six innings of work. He allowed five hits and four runs. Bassitt is now 7-5 for the year. Lou Trivino and Blake Treinen each worked an inning and did not allow Houston to put any runs on the board.

Verlander, who probably will go into the Baseball Hall of Fame when he is finished playing, improved to 13-4. His line was six innings, two hits, one unearned run, two walks, and 11 strikeouts.

The A’s drop to 58-45 and trail the Astros by 7 1/2 games in the division. The Astros improved to 66-38.  The Astros continue to dominate the A’s as they lead the season series 9-2.

Up Next: The A’s return home to face the Texas Rangers for four games starting Thursday night. Brett Anderson (9-5, 3.82 ERA) will go for Oakland. Game time will be at 7:07 pm.

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Photo/Graphic: @Astros

By Charlie O. Mallonee

Coming home to the Oakland Coliseum has not been a good thing for the Oakland Athletics. After winning 11 consecutive games, the A’s have now lost four games in a row at home. They have also lost a second consecutive series at home.

The first-place Houston Astros downed the A’s 5-1 on Saturday night at the Coliseum behind the “lights out” pitching of Justin Verlander (9-2, 2.27 ERA). The perennial All-Star pitcher worked 8.0-innings allowing just one run (earned) off four hits. Verlander struck out eight Oakland hitters while walking just two.

The A’s only run of the game came in the second inning when Stephen Piscotty hit the first pitch from Verlander over the wall in right field for his seventh home run of the season.

Brett Anderson (6-4, 3.95 ERA) made the start for Oakland. He worked 5.1-innings giving up three runs (all earned) on eight hits. Anderson struck out two and walked two.

The A’s used two relief pitchers in the contest. Yusmeiro Petit pitched 2.2-innings of perfect baseball while striking out two Astros. Joakim Soria closed out the game pitching the ninth inning and giving up two runs off two hits (1 HR).

A’s Spotlight

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Marcus Semien ejected Photo: @Athletics
  • Anderson has allowed five home runs in his last four starts after he gave up just one homer in his previous eight starts.
  • Ramon Laureano recorded his sixth assist of the year on Saturday. The center fielder threw Robinson Chirinos out as he attempted to advance to second base in the fourth inning.
  • Speaking of Laureano, he extended his career-long hitting streak to 14 games when he singled off Verlander in the fifth inning.
  • Marcus Semien was ejected in the fifth inning of the game. It was the first time Semien has been ejected from a game in his career.
  • Stephen Piscotty has possessed the hot bat for the A’s during this homestand. He went 2-for-4 on Saturday and he is batting .417 (10-for-24) with five runs, two doubles, two home runs, and four RBI in the eight games.

Houston Notes

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Graphic: @Astros
  • Justin Verlander passed Cy Young for 21st on the all-time strikeout list (that’s impressive). Verlander is now for tied for the most wins in the Major Leagues with nine victories.
  • Josh Reddick is happy to back in the Coliseum. He has hit home runs in consecutive games for the first time since September 15 and 16, 2018. Reddick is hitting .412 (7-for-17) with three home runs and five RBI in four games in the Coliseum this season.
  • Michael Brantley now leads the MLB in multi-hit games after going 2-for-3 with a walk on Saturday. He has posted 27 multi-hit games. Brantley has recorded 72 hits already this season and is tied for first in the American League.

Up Next

The Astros and A’s will wrap up their series on Sunday at 1:07 PM PDT. Houston will send RHP Gerrit Cole (5-5, 4.04 ERA) to the mound to try and make it a sweep over Oakland. The A’s will counter with RHP Chris Bassitt (3-1, 3.27 ERA) in order to try and stop their losing streak.

Verlander again, and even more devastating

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By Morris Phillips

Justin Verlander was so good Thursday, it didn’t matter that he repeatedly challenged Oakland hitters with fastballs that they normally salivate over.   The A’s were so concerned with Verlander’s other pitches—particularly his curve which baffled them in Game 2–they were mental messes, guessing, wailing but ultimately whiffing.

The team that built their late-season surge on big swings, big results was well on their way to the off-season in great part due to managing just one base hit in the first seven innings against their nemesis reborn in Verlander.

How good was Verlander?  Historically good.

Verlander stopped the A’s dead in their tracks in last year’s Game 5, throwing 122 pitches, striking out 11 and pitching a complete game shutout.  On Saturday night, in Game 2, he was dazzling again, shutting the A’s down for seven innings while surrendering just four disjointed base hits.

But on Thursday, he was even better, commanding four pitches and making the A’s look foolish.  The big righthander saw the A’s swing and miss 24 times, as the stubborn Oakland hitters refused to jump out of character, hoping to catch one of the heaters and send it a long way.

But the long balls never materialized.   Hits were hard enough to come by and trying to figure out Verlander was next was impossible.  Detroit manager Jim Leyland described it succinctly.

“He was locked in tonight,” Leyland said.  “He used the fastball a lot tonight and when you got that fastball, he’s got three well-above average Major League pitches and another one that’s at least average and maybe a little bit better.  When you’ve got four pitches above average and a couple of them really above average, you can shut down a lot of teams.”

Verlander’s pitched 30 innings against the A’s in post-season now and not surrendered a run.  That’s a new Major League record, one that hasn’t been messed with since 1911.  Christy Mathewson threw 28 scoreless, post-season innings against the A’s back then over a period of seven seasons.

“We weren’t getting very good swings on him,” A’s manager Bob Melvin admitted.  “I thought maybe when it started to get darker, we would get better swings, but he kept throwing fastballs.  I haven’t seen the video to see if he was on the corners all night.”

If Verlander wasn’t on the corners, he was conveniently off the corners.  Throughout his command was flawless and his location as well.  That the A’s had to wait nearly seven innings just to get a hit says it all.  Once all that’s digested, it’s nearly impossible to comprehend that the six-time All-Star had an off-season, struggling with his command and his velocity while his ERA hit nearly 5.00 from May through August.

All the problems ceased in September.  Verlander finished the season with a 2.27 ERA over his final six starts and his confidence soared.

“I’m pitching the way I’m supposed to,” Verlander said.  “I worked my butt off all year to try to get consistent and get myself where I needed to be.  I feel like it finally paid off at the end of the year.”

“He’s getting downhill now,” Leyland chimed in.  “He’s gotten mechanically back in sync, got all his pitches.”

And once Verlander steadied, the A’s presented themselves as Detroit’s first playoff opponent.  It was a match made in historical heaven.

The A’s struck out 57 times in the series, which set a new LDS record, breaking the record established by the Rangers in 2010 when they struck out 55 times against the Rays.   Verlander accounted for 21 of the 57, all at the Coliseum, the biggest enthusiasm and rally killer imaginable.

Give Verlander the ball in a series clincher?  That’s an obvious.  The 6’5” starter joined Sandy Koufax as the only starters to throw consecutive, 10 strikeout, shut out performances in the post-season.   Koufax—arguably the greatest pitcher ever—built his reputation in 1965 when he accomplished the feat by shutting down the Dodgers in Game 5, and then again in Game 7.

The A’s established a more dubious record for getting stopped cold in the ALDS for the second straight season.   Oakland’s 0-6 in the Divison series when it goes the full five games and that’s something they can’t do anything about for a long time, at least not before next October.

A’s play most important elimination game in 25 years

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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

OAKLAND–Tonight(5:07PM) the Oakland Athletics will face the Detroit Tigers in an elimination game. The winner travels to Boston to open the American League Championship Series against the Red Sox, the other team goes home.

But why is tonight the most important game in the past quarter century for the A’s?

–For starters, they will face again the same pitcher that eliminated them last year, Justin Verlander on the fifth and final game of the Divisional Series.

–For over 25 years the Oakland Athletics have not been able to go “deep into the postseason”, under three different ownerships.

–I was there for those great championship seasons, the five pennant and three consecutive trips to the World Series in 1988, 1989 and 1990. Those were the days when the Oakland A’s rocked the bay. The Walter Haas ownership was without a doubt the best ever for the A’s and one of the best ever in the history of professional sports in the bay area.

–One year prior to that great run (1987) the Athletics hosted the Major League All Star Game, Oakland was the talk of the Bay Area. I remember as a part of the Oakland A’s All Star Committee, appointed by the A’S, we met with then Mayor of Oakland Lionel Wilson. Oakland was a city on the move. Good things were happening in Oakland, and the Oakland A’s greatly helped into that great civic pride.

–Today the Oakland Coliseum is an antiquated place to play baseball in a time in history were every other team seems to have a brand new and fan friendly park. A victory tonight, puts the A’S in the American League Championship Series and just four more wins from a fifth World Series title.

–An A’s team than wins a World Series this year could be extremely important for the future of this franchise, where they are going to play, and if they will be able to move to San José, per owners Wolff and Fisher desires. The Athletics in the World Series this year, would put the baseball park issue ‘front and center’, no way Commissioner Selig could hide from that. His blue ribbon commission has spent over 4 years trying to make a decision on the move of the A’s to San José, four years and no decision(World War II lasted around six years).

–But most important a win tonight for Bob Melvin’s A’s is a huge step in returning the prestige the luster back,of this franchise, after the last few years of the “party”across the bay at a truly beautiful stadium.

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One of these teams will win the 2013 World Series, in alphabetical order: Athletics, Cardinals, Dodgers, Red Sox and Tigers,  that’s it – it will be reduced tonight by one more team leaving and going home. They are all traditional franchises that have been operating in one same town for over a century, except the Athletics and Dodgers)

Vogt, Gray lead the A’s past the Tigers in Game 2

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Justin Verlander was filthy and Sonny Gray surprised everyone with his poise and confidence, but ultimately Stephen Vogt and his inside-out, single through a drawn-in infield stole the show on Saturday night.

Vogt’s single with the bases loaded scored Yoenis Cespedes with the game’s only run in the A’s 1-0 win that evened the ALDS series with Game 3 scheduled for Detroit on Monday.

You come up bases loaded, nobody out, and that’s what you dream of,” Vogt said.  “Look for something over the plate, stay in the middle of the field, just fortunate to come through.”

Prior to his game-winning moment, Vogt looked like a lot of other frustrated hitters on Saturday.  Verlander and Gray not only dominated the proceedings to that point, they embarrassed hitters along the way, combining to strike out 20, marking the first time in Major League post-season history that both starting pitchers struck out at least nine batters and didn’t allow a run.

Verlander and Gray both scattered four singles over the length of their outings, with the Detroit starter going seven while striking out 11.  Gray went eight innings and struck out nine.

Verlander’s big outing wasn’t a surprise, but when he produced one of the best starts of his career, the fact that Gray was able to match him nearly pitch-for-pitch was.   While Verlander backed off the heat just a little and had A’s hitters guessing what pitch was coming next, Gray stuck to his fastball-curveball combo to perfection, blowing up the strike zone and using his devastating curve as his out pitch.

Remember, Verlander’s a 30-year old veteran with six All-Star appearances while Gray’s made just 10 starts at the Major League level.

“You know, Sonny did one heck of a job,” Verlander said.  “He was able to use his angst and energy for a positive and a lot of young guys it works against them.  That’s why veterans usually seem to do better in post-season pressure.  He handled himself like a veteran and it was impressive.”

Both starters allowed a pair of baserunners to reach in the fifth inning, but they turned up the pressure at that point instead of letting the pressure cook them.  With two on and one out, Gray struck out Austin Jackson and Vogt threw out Jose Iglesias attempting to steal second base.  Verlander allowed the first two runners to reach and then retired Josh Reddick and struck out Vogt and Eric Sogard.

In the A’s ninth, Cespedes and Seth Smith singled off Al Alburquerque and Reddick was intentionally walked to load the bases.  Detroit manager Jim Leyland opted for Rick Porcello—normally a starter—at that point and he allowed Vogt’s game-winning hit on a 1-1 pitch.

The A’s avoided falling behind 2-0 in the series and will need to win just one of the two games in Detroit to force a series-deciding Game 5 back in Oakland on Thursday.

Miguel Cabrera went 1 for 4 with a strikeout and Detroit leadoff man Jackson struck out in all four of his plate appearances.  The Tigers’ Don Jackson joined Cespedes and Seth Smith as the only hitters in the game to produce two hits.

On Monday, Jarrod Parker will face the Tigers’ Anibal Sanchez at 1:07 EST in Detroit.

Tigers beat A’s, 3-2, in ALDS Game 1

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By George Devine, Sr.

Last year, when Detroit played in a postseason game, it was their fourth straight loss to a Bay Area team, in this case San Francisco in the 2012 World Series. This year, the Tigers came to Oakland determined to show their stuff, and now they are 1-0 in the ALDS.

Before a national TV audience, and a sellout crowd of 48,401 in a balmy O.co Coliseum, the defending American League champions took charge in the first inning. Austin Jackson led off with a double to right and advanced to third as Torii Hunter walked. Miguel Cabrera hit a grounder to center field and brought Jackson home, but then Prince Fielder hit into a 6-4-3 double play which scored Hunter. Victor Martinez hit one of Bartolo Colon’s pitches just above shortstop Jed Lowrie, grazing the tip of his glove, and reached second, then came home when Alex Avila singled to right.

The only other scoring of the evening was a two-run homer to left by Yoenis Cespedes with Brandon Moss on base. Cespedes had tripled to left in the second off Max Scherzer and is one of only two Oakland Athletics to hit both a triple and a homer in a postseason game, the other being Rickey Henderson in Game 4 of the 1989 World Series at San Francisco. Coco Crisp obviously was someone Detroit did not want to pitch to; he walked three times and sruck out once.

Colon is the loser (6 ip, 10 h, 3 er, 4 k) and Scherzer the winner (7 ip, 3 h, 2 er, 2 w, 11 k, 1 hr). Joaquin Benoit picked up the save,

The two teams meet again at 6:07 p.m. on Saturday, October 5, with Sonny Gray facing fellow RHP Justin Verlander.

The Roar of the Crowd

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By Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland Fans

Much has been written about the Oakland fans this year. While attendance has not been as robust as

the owners would like(they only have themselves to blame) the attendance was 1.8 million, the highest in many years. The hardcore fans were here for every game and their support of the A’s has been

unbelievable. Many of the nights were cold but the fans showed up and were loud letting the players know that they were behind them all the way. These folks know how to make noise especially when closer Grant Balfour comes into the game. The fans in the right field bleachers go crazy with the “rage.”

Well, the stage is set for the first game of the American League Division series with the Detroit Tigers.

The fans let the Tigers’ players know what they thought of them booing especially loud when they announced Justin Verlander’s name as well as Miguel Cabrera and Al Albuquerque , of all people.

This will be the third time the A’s will be playing the Tigers in the playoff s since 2006 and they are

hoping that the Green and Gold win the first game. The A’s wisely removed the tarps from the third deck and there are 48,401 fans in the park cheering for the A’s. It just got very loud as the team went on the field to start the game.

The Tigers scored three in the first inning that quieted the crowd a bit but it got very loud every time

there was a two strike count on a Tiger hitter. The Coliseum is really rocking with two out. The fans

have the “Let’s Go Oakland.” chant shaking the seats like a 4.0 quake. The place is really rocking as Yoenis Cespedes tripled to left field. The noise is so loud you can’t hear the person sitting next to you.

However, the Tigers’ Max Scherzer has been dominant much to the displeasure of the crowd.

The biggest roar of the night came when Josh Reddick threw out Victor Martinez at home in the top of the sixth preventing the Tigers from scoring another run. The fans need the A’s to get something going

as the crowd roars again as Colon gets out of the jam.

The noise level in the seventh inning was awesome as it reached decibels that these ears have never heard before at the Coliseum until Yoenis Cespedes hit a home run.

Well, the flags are flying and the crowd is into it as we start the bottom of the ninth. The adrenaline is really flowing. The fans are on their feet urging and hoping and praying that the A’s rally. The A’s failed

as they went down in order and the A’s take it on the chin. One thing is for sure, the fans will be back for Game two and they will continue to be loud and let the players know that they are behind them as they have been all season.

Veteran Colon gets the ball for Game 1 of ALDS

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By Daniel Dullum

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Forty-year-old veteran Bartolo Colon will get the ball from Oakland Manager Bob Melvin to start Game 1 of the American League Divisional Series Friday at the Coliseum.

Colon was an 18-game winner in 2013, went through a slump in August but bounced back for the pennant run. He’ll face Max Scherzer (21-3), who supplanted Justin Verlander as the Tigers’ ace this season.

The A’s will face Verlander in Game 2 on Saturday, countering with rookie Sonny Gray.

With essentially a no-name lineup, the A’s won 96 games this season, but still find themselves underdogs against Detroit, which won its third consecutive AL Central Division title.

Melvin told the Bay Area media Thursday that there is “a good chance” the Yoenis Cespedes will play left field in the ALDS. If Cespedes can work through the discomfort of his sore right shoulder and play left, Melvin said Brandon Moss would be the designated hitter. However, if Cespedes can’t play in the outfield, he would DH and Daric Barton would play at first.

As far as other lineup moves go, Melvin will start Eric Sogard at second base over Alberto Callaspo. Since Callaspo is a switch-hitter, that gives Melvin a little more flexibility with his bench.

On the Detroit side, third baseman Miguel Cabrera, the reigning AL most valuable player, will play despite a nagging groin pull, among other ailments. But Cabrera insists he will be ready for the ALDS.

“I don’t think the groin will be an issue in the series,” Cabrera told the media. “I feel much better the last couple of days.”

First pitch is slated for 6:37 p.m. TBS will televise all games of the best-of-five series.

A’s ACORNS: Dave Henderson, an outfielder on the 1989 Oakland A’s World Series championship team, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch Friday prior to Game 1 of the AL Divisional Series. … Detroit SS Jhonny Peralta is on the Tigers’ 25-man postseason roster. Peralta was suspended for 50 games during the season for his alleged involvement with the Biogenesis clinic accused of distributing performance-enhancing drugs.