Tag: Oakland A’s

The Seattle Mariners Mitch Hanieger is all smiles in the M’s dugout after his seventh inning home run at T Mobile Field in Seattle on Tue Sep 28, 2021 (AP News photo)

Oakland Continues to Struggle in Seattle

By Barbara Mason

Tuesday evening the Oakland A’s were back at work trying to figure out the Seattle Mariners. Last night they were walloped by the Mariners 13-4 after taking a 3-0 lead early in the game. They just could not hold on to that lead. The Mariners came on strong in the third inning and did not look back. The Mariners take game two of this three game series 4-2.

Neither team had much going on in the first three innings. Chris Bassitt was on the mound for Oakland and pitched into the fourth inning before being relieved by Petit. He had allowed 3 hits and 1 walk.

Oakland’s Chad Pinder hit a home run in the fourth inning giving the A’s a brief lead in this game.

Petit allowed a single, a double and two runs giving the Mariners a 2-1 lead in the fourth. Sergio Romo would relieve Petit in the fifth with a three up, three down inning. In the sixth inning Romo allowed 3 hits and one run. That would be all for Romo and Diekman came in to relieve.

The A’s would score in the seventh inning when Tony Kemp singled driving Mark Canha home. The A’s had pulled to within one run 3-2 and needed to keep the Mariners off the scoreboard. Seattle had different plans. Once again Mitch Hanigar knocked the ball out of the park as he had done twice last night. Seattle now led by the score of 4-2 with time running out for the A’s.

The ninth inning was a tough one for Oakland. Matt Chapman had a single but Brown and Murphy both struck out. Tony Kemp flied out and that was the ball game. Seattle had won eleven games in a row against the A’s.

All of the runs in this game came at the hands of the Oakland relief pitching so another struggle for the A’s on the mound.

The final game of this series will be Wednesday night with first pitch at 7:10.

Oakland A’s catcher Sean Murphy (left) see A’s pitcher Cole Irvin (center) off as he’s relieved and Matt Chapman (right) pats him off in the bottom of the fourth inning at T Mobile Field in Seattle in first game of the three game series on Mon Sep 27, 2021 (AP News photo)

Mariners Continue to Dominate A’s 13-4

By Barbara Mason

Monday night the Oakland A’s took on the Seattle Mariners in a three game series at T-Mobile Park. The A’s will finish the 2021 season on the road. Both teams were in the wild card hunt but hopes for a playoff berth have dimmed significantly. The A’s loss on Monday puts them three games back of the second Wild Card spot. Seattle still has a shot if they can win tonight.

The A’s got off to a nice start taking the lead 3-0 when Seth Brown hit a homer bringing Matt Olson and Mark Canha home. By the third inning Seattle had tied the game and in the fourth inning took an 8-4 lead when Mitch Haniger hit a home run with J.P Crawford and Ty France on base.

It was another disappointing outing for Cole Irvin who lasted only 4 1/2 innings. In the fourth inning Guerra came in to relieve Irving . He allowed 2 hits and the Haniger homerun. It took James Kaprielian who came in to relieve Guerra to get out of the fourth inning.

Again a terrible letdown by the Bullpen as well as the starting pitching. This has been the case for Oakland for the past few months and a huge part of what is going wrong right now for the team.

Kaprielian got out of the fourth inning and through the fifth but in the sixth inning disaster struck again when Mitch Hanigan came to the plate. He hit another homer, his second of the game, and Seattle had taken an 11-4 lead.

It was yet another ugly game against the Seattle Mariners, a replay of games played all season with these guys. There have been a number of teams that seem to have Oakland figured out but Seattle is the team that is the most prominent. Oakland has lost 12 of 15 games against Seattle this season.

In the seventh inning Sam Moll came to the mound to relieve Kaprielian. He allowed a bunt, he hit Tom Murphy and walked Dylan Moore to load the bases with one out.

Two more runs would come in extending Seattle’s lead to 13-4. With two outs Hanigan would come to the plate looking for his third homer of the game. He did not get that third home run but Seattle did signigicant damage in the seventh inning.

The final in this game was 13-4 and with this win the Mariners are 1 1/2 games behind the Red Sox for the second wild card. First pitch in tomorrows game two is scheduled for 7:10 PM. Frankie Montas will be on the mound for Oakland and for the Mariners it will be Logan Gilbert.

Oakland A’s Mark Canha (20) center is mobbed by his A’s teammates after his ninth inning walk off single to score Sean Murphy for the game winning run against the Houston Astros at the Ring Central Coliseum in Oakland on Sun Sep 26, 2021 (Bay Area News Group photo)

By Morris Phillips

Once again the Oakland A’s (85-71) came up with a Mark Canha walk off RBI hit in the bottom of the ninth for the second consecutive day. This time the A’s came up a 4-3 winner over the Houston Astros (91-65) at the Oakland Coliseum on the final home game of 2021.

The win also gives the A’s a three game sweep over the Astros beating the AL West leaders the win puts the A’s who are in third place six games behind the Astros with six games games left in the regular season. The A’s are 3.5 games back for the second Wild Card spot.

The Astros who took the loss their magic number remains at two. The Astros Alex Bergman hit a home run for the Astros. After the three game sweep a exhausted Astros manager Dusty Baker said he’s looking to move on to the next series, “I’m glad we’ve got an off day tomorrow.” said Dusty “This was a tough series. Two walk-offs and the other game was close until the end. This was tough. It was real tough. Things will change, I know it.”

The Astros have played 17 straight games without a day off which is one of the reasons why the Astros might have such a struggle during the three game series. On Saturday the A’s Starling Marte hit a double which scored Elvis Andrus who broke his leg when tried to slide but belly flopped at the plate. Andrus and also Jed Lowrie are both on the ten day injured list.

In the bottom of the ninth inning on Sunday with the bases loaded Mark Canha got a game winning hit scoring Sean Murphy from third. Canha said he was just trying to look for a pitch to hit, “I try not too look for pitches as much and just try to get into the flow of the at-bat and usually that means not swinging at the first pitch,” Canha said. “But this AB, I felt good. I said to myself, ‘If you see it well, let it rip.’ I just saw it well out of the hand.”

The A’s head to Seattle for a three game series with the Mariners at T Mobile the A’s will be starting Cole Irvin (10-14 ERA 3.99) and for the Mariners Chris Flexen (13-6 ERA 3.56) a 7:10 pm first pitch.

Oakland Starling Marte gestures after hitting a two RBI double in the bottom of the seventh inning against the Houston Astros at the Oakland Ring Central Coliseum on Fri Sep 24, 2021 (AP News photo)

Houston 2 – 2 – 0

Oakland 14 – 14 – 1

By Lewis Rubman

Friday September 24, 2021

OAKLAND–Going into their penultimate series with Houston, with only the wan hope of retaining their sliver of a chance of winning the second wild card slot and everything to lose, it seemed as though the A’s might have caught a break when Houston’s Zack Greinke, tonight’s scheduled starter for the Astros, was placed on the club’s injured list with a sore neck and replaced on the mound by Brandon Bielak, a 24 year old with the grand total of 79 major league innings pitched under his belt and a record of 3-3, 4.21 in this, his second season in the show.

But the 37 year old Greinke is an old man by baseball standards and, at 11-6, 4.11, was sporting numbers only marginally better than those of Bielak, who had defeated the Athletics in relief at the Coliseum on April 4 with 4-2/3 innings of no hit, no run moundcraft.

He was up against Frankie Montás, who was exceptionally sharp in his last outing, five days ago in Anaheim, when he held the Angels to one hit in seven scoreless innings to bring his year’s record to 12-9, 3.57.

When the dust had settled and the crowd of 21,107 got ready to watch the fireworks that had enticed them into attendance,

The game started inauspiciously for the home. team. José Altuve smacked a sharp grounder to Matt Chapman at third, who airmailedthe throw way over Matt Olson’s head at first. Altuve kept motoring all the way to third, where Olson’s throw beat to the bag.

But Chapman couldn’t handle the throw, and Altuve was 90 feet from home on a three base error by Oakland’s Gold and Platinum Glove winning third sacker.

Alex Bregman, another slick fielding third baseman, put runners on the corners by getting hit by a 96 mph sinker. Yuri Gurriel’s sac fly to Seth Brown in right drove in Altuve with the first tally of evening. Montás, showing a great deal of poise, put a stop to the Astro’s attack by striking Yordán Alvarez and Carlos Correa out.

Oakland went on the offensive in their half of the first. Josh Harrison drive bounced past Bregman into left for a lead off single. Starling Marte followed with another single to left, and the A’s had runners on first and second and the powerful Matt Olson at bat with no outs.

The powerful Matt Olson took an 89 mph change up for a called third strike. With Mark Canha at the plate, Harrison broke for second. Houston catcher Martín Maldonado threw behind him to Altuve at second, whose throw to Bregman easily retired Harrison at third for the second out. Marte’s advancing to second on the play didn’t matter; Canha went down swinging.

Leading off in the third frame, Altuve continued to bedevil the A’s and their fans, who took special delight in booing him, by driving a 3-2 pitch over the State Farm advertisement in left center for his 30th round tripper of the year. It was Houston’s first hit of the game.

Oakland got two runners on base with one out in the third on walks to Andrus and Harrison. Marte came through with a single to center that scored Andrus and sent Harrison to third. Olson also came through in the same way, scoring Harrison and sending Marte to third.

Canha’s sac fly to McCormick in left center gave the A’s a 3-1 lead before Brown flew out, also to Mc Cormick, in straightaway left field to end the inning, leaving the Athletics up by a run.

Bielak didn’t come out for the fourth. He’d thrown 54 pitches, 31 for strikes, and the three rns he surrendered were earned. He allowed four hits and two walks, against three strike outs. Rookie Peter Solomon replaced him and put down the last four men in the Oakland batting order, allowing only a single to Gomes.

Bielak still was on the mound when Seth Brown became the second A to be thrown out attempting to steal. He had singled, sandwiched between strike outs of Canha and Chapman, and Maldonado’s throw to Correa was right on the button.

Montás began to waiver in the top of the seventh, After granting a lead off walk to Kyle Tucker, he allowed an opposite field single to McCormick. Jake Meyers sacrificed the runners up a base each.

With the infield drawn in, Montás snared Meyers´shot to the mound and threw him out at first, leaving runners still on second and third when Altuve came to bat, accompanied by his usual round of boos and catcalls. The diminutive second sacker sent a hard line drive … directly into the glove of Kemp in left for the third out.

When the ´stros took the field in the home half of the seventh, Yimi García was on the mound for them, facing the bottom of the order. Kemp and Gomes singled to center, putting men on the corners for Andrus. He flew out to right, bringing Harrison to the plate.

After a 13 pitch battle, he walked to clog the basepaths. On the very next pitch, Marte rifled a double down the left field line, sending Kemp and Gomes home, Harrison to third, García to the showers, and southpaw hurler Brooks Raley to the hill.

Olson drew a full count before striking out swinging, which left clean up hitter Mark Canha the job of further padding the Oakland lead. The count on him also went to 3-2. Then Canha went to first on a base on balls that reloaded the bases.

Chad Pender pinch hit for Brown and unloaded them. His grand slam cleared the left filed wall with plenty to spare, landing 425 feet from home and giving the A’s a 9-2 lead. It was his fourth home run of the year and second gland slam of his career. Chapman’s strike out was anticlimatic.

Yusmeiro Petit came in for the Houston eighth and set the Astros down in order. Montás had gone seven innngs and allowed two runs, one earned, on two hits, three walks, and three hit batters. His pitch count reached 106, 65 of them strikes.

Seth Martínez opened the eighth for the visitors. Oakland promptly loaded the bases on him with singles by Kemp and Andrus, interspersed by a walk to Gomes. Skye Bolt, who replaced Harrison, who had battered himself with foul balls in his last at bat, walked to make the score 10-2.

Meyers made a diving attempt to capture Marte’s fly to left center but failed, and everyone moved up a base. The bases once again were loaded, and Olson was at bat. He slammed the second pitch he saw off the center field fence for his 34th double of the season, driving in the three men in front of him and upping the A’s margin, which by now was a chasm, to 14-2. Chapman struck out for the fifth time, ending the inning, the second in a row in which Oakland had sent nine men to the plate.

The Athletics entrusted the fairly easy task of holding a 12 run lead for one inning and the more difficult one of maintaining his concentration to Domingo Acevedo. He walked three of the six batters he faced, He struck out the other three.

Montás, with the win, is 13-9, 3.48. The loss went to. Bielak, now 3-4, 4.50.

Marte led the Oakland hit parade with four, followed by Olson, Kemp, and Gomes with two. Harrison, Brown, Pinder, and Andrus also added to their hit totals.

After the three hour 41 minute game had ended, the distance between the division leading Astros and the third place Athletics had been reduced to seven games. They are four games behind the Yankees in the second wild card sweepstakes

It will be Sean Manaea (10-10, 4.o5) against. Framber Valdez (11-5, 3.07) in a battle of left handers starting Saturday afternoon at 1:07.

Oakland A’s starter Chris Bassitt makes his first start for Oakland since his injury Aug 17th. Bassitt is pitching here against the Seattle Mariners who swept the A’s in four games on Thu Sep 23, 2021 at the Oakland Coliseum (AP News photo)

Seattle` 6 – 7 – 1

Oakland 5 – 6 – 0

By Lewis Rubman

Thursday September 23, 2021

OAKLAND–When the A’s reinstated Chris Bassitt from the injured list this morning, their press release noted that he “will be making his first start since Aug. 17 at Chicago (AL) when he was hit in the face by a Brian Goodwin line drive in the second inning. He was placed on the IL Aug. 18 with a right facial fracture and had surgery on Aug. 24.”

The Athletics went into that game at 68-51. They entered today’s game at 82-70. That means they lost two-thirds of the 35 they played during Bassitt’s absence. It would be impossible to measure how much the latter was a cause of the former, but an entire lack of causality would be highly unlikely.

In any case, the righty’s return to the roster—and to the pitching rubber—today would be good news regardless of how well he performed. It turned out that he performed exdtremely well, giving up a single and a walk to the first two batters he faced and retiring the nine others that remained before being relieved after having thrown 48 pitches, 38 for strikes, in three innings.

Basically, he was an opener for James Karpielian, who took over in the fourth. That didn’t do the A’s much good. They blew a three run lead and went down to a 6-5 defeat that wasn’t as close as thee final score indicated.

The Athletics skipped out to an early lead against Seattle starter Yusei Kikuchi in the second on a walk to Matt Chapman and Sean Murphy’s single to right that sent Chapmanto third. He scored on Elvis Andrus’s rising line drive to center that Jarred Kelenic had to jump a bit before he could haul it down. They added to their lead in the third on a walk to Olson, who scored on Yan Gomes’s double that hit the center field fence, just to the right of the 400 foot marker, on one hop.

Kaprielian allowed the M’s to get on the board by plunking Kyle Seager to open the frame and then allowing a two out RBI double to Abraham Toro.

Kikuchi, like Bassit, was removed after three innings, but for a different reason. In his short stint, the lefty had thrown 72 pitches (40 were strikes) and allowed three runs, all earned, on three hits, four walks, and a hit batter. He struck out three Athletics.

His replacement, Yohan Ramírez lasted a mere third of an inning, in which he surrendeered a lead off first pitch round tripper to Sean Murphy and walked Andrus and Marte. Anthony Misiewcz relileved Ramírez and slammed the door on the. A’s by fanning Olson and Gomes. In the meantime, Oakland had restored their three run margin, leading 4-1.

That situation situation didn’t last long. All it took was Dylan Moore’s first pitch lead off single to right and Cal Raleigh’s second homer of ‘21, also to right, to narrow the gap to 4-3.

Right handed sidewinder Joe Smth entered the game to start the Oakland half of the fourth, hoping to keep Seattle within striking distance of the A’s. He pitched the first clean inning of the game for the Mariners.

Jake Diekman went to the hill to start the top of the sixth for the A’s, still hanging on to their fragile 4-3 lead. Seven pitches later, he was trying to keep the game tied. Mitch Haniger’s 35th homer of the season just barely cleared the glove of the leaping Pinder, 375 feet into reight field. Even that tie didn’t last long, Diekman walked Kelenic, struck out Abraham Toro, and then gave up pinch hitting Luis Torrens’ 15th round triper of the year, a 366 foot liner to left. Just anothe aternoon in the Oakland bullpen…

For the final three frames, the A’s bullpen functioned as it was designed to.Deolis Guerra, a flicker of llight in the dark night of the Athletics’ relief corps coughed up a double to Raleigh, but that was sandwhiched between Ks of Moore and Crawford. Guerra pitched until Andrew Chafin relived him with a perfect eighth. Trivino duplicated Chafin’s feat in the ninth

Casey Sadler’s task, on coming to the mound in the sixth was to protect the M’s 6-4 lead. It took him all of five pitches to do that. He encountered a spot of bother in Jed Lowrie’s pinch hit double down the right field line in the seventh, but Lowrie didn’t go any further, and Diego Castilo inherited the 6-4 lead in the eighth Right away, he was saved by a sparkling diving catch of Chapman’s sinking liner to left by Jake Bauers, who had entered the game in the seventh.

One more, Paul Sewald was called on to close things out for the visitors. He struck out Harrison and Marte and slipped a fast ball by Olson for strike one. But then Olson unloaded on another fast ball, and his 38 homer sailed over the right field fence. Lowrie now represented the potential tying run. He ended up being the final out.

The win went to Smith, who’s now 3-4 and sports an ERA of 5.12. Diekman, the losing pitcher, is now 5-3 and has blown seven saves. The save, his 10th, went to Sewald.

Friday evening at 6:40, Frankie Montás (12-9, 3.57) will face the Astros, who haven’t announced who will start for them. There will be fireworks after the game.