Oakland A’s Ramon Laureano fist bumps with third base coach Mark Kotsay in the fourth inning after hitting a home run at the Oakland Ring Central Coliseum on Wed Jun 16, 2021 (AP News photo)
Los Angeles 4 – 9 – 0
Oakland 8 -10 -0
By Lewis Rubman
Wednesday June16, 2021
OAKLAND–Five days ago, Cole Irvin pitched six beautiful innings at the Coliseum, shutting out the Kansas City Royals on two singles . Then, with Oakland leading 3-0, Salvador Pérez homered off the Oakland southpaw, followed by singles by Andrew Benintendi and Jorge Soler.
Yusmeiro Petit rode to Irvin’s rescue and retired the next two batters, but an error by Elvis Andrus, whose walk off single ended up winning the game for the A’s two innings later, opened the door for Benintendi to score KC’s second run of the inning.
In the next episode, Pérez blasted an encore home run off of Jake Diekman to tie the score, robbing Irvin of credit for what would have been his fifth win of 2021. His record had stalled at 4-7, 3.70.
Today, bolstered by the Oakland A’s (43-27) Ramón Laureano’s return to the line up, Irvin went for that fifth victory, facing the LA Angels (33-35), who sent Griffin Canning (5-4,5.22) to the mound.
Canning last saw action a week ago, when he held Kansas City to one run on five hits and two walks over 6-2/3 innings in a 6-1 victory over the Royals at Angel Stadium. Before today, he had a career record of 1-3, 4.88 against the green and gold. Last year, it was 0-2, 6.75.
There would be no win number five for the A’s lefty today. He left the game, trailing 4-2 with two men on and two down in the sixth. He had thrown 81 pitches, 55 for strikes, and surrender four runs, all earned on nine hits, including one homer.
He walked two and struck out two, and was on the hook for the loss. That went to Los Angeles’ Tony Watson after Oakland came back to defeat the fallen Angels 8-4..
The Angels gave Irvin a rude greeting. Justin Upton slammed his first pitch of the game up against the Kaiser Permanente sign between the 388 and 362 foot markers in right center field for a two base hit. He advanced to third on Shohei.
Ohtani’s ground out to Elvis Andrus, playing in the shift, and scored on Max Stassi’s single to left through a drawn in infield. Stassi went to second on another single to left, this one byo José Iglesias. Taylor Ward followed with yet another single to, you guessed it, left that brought Stassi home.
Jared Ward broke the monotony by sending a blast to deep left field, where Mark Canha made a spectacular leaping grab at the wall. Phil Gosselin drove in another run, scored by Iglesias with one more single, this one to center.
It looks as if the A’s might mount the start of a come back when Taylor Ward mishandled Matt Olson’s two out single to right and the A’s first baseman hustled to second, where umpire Mel Lentz called him safe. The umpires reviewing the play in New York called him out, Taylor to Stassi, covering.
The Angels padded their early lead with Ohtani’s 19th home run, a first pitch shot over the right field wall.
Laureano made two noteworthy catches in the top of the fourth. He made a long distance running catch of a liner off Lagares’s bat to open the inning and an excellent leap to pull Upton’s drive back from over the right center field fence to end the frame, the first one in which Irvin didn’t allow a runner to reach base.
In the A’s half of the inning, Laureano extended his stellar perormance, puting the Athletics on the board with a 404 foot blast on an 88 mph that left his bat at 107 mph before landing in the left field seats. It gave him an even dozen round trippers in his injury shortened season.
Irvin hung in there, benefiting from the Lefty Gomez method of successful pitching (clean living and a fast outfield) as the A’s slowly changed what looked like would be a rout into a ball glame.
Kemp walked with one down in the fifth and reached third on Aramis García’s seeing eye single to right and then scored when Canha beat out the relay from second on what would have been a double play for som without his hustle and speed. The scoreboard now read 4-2.
In the top of the sixth, Burch Smith took charge of Oakland´s pitching. He hurled 1-1/3 innings of perfect relief, earning himself his first win against no loses before turning the ball over to Sergio Romo, who pitched a 1,2, 3 top of the eigthth.
Canning was out of the game when the A’s next came to bat. He had worked five innings, in which he had yielded two earned runs on three hits, one of which went yard, two walks, and a hit batter. 45 of his 69 pitches were counted as strikes.
Canning’s replacement, Tony Watson, blew LA’s lead. He gave up back to back to back to back singles to Olson, Jed Lowry (batting for Moreland), Chapman, and Chad Pinder (recovered from his recent beaning and batting for Brown) that tied the game at four.
A conceded walk to Andrus, followed by Kemp’s single to center and the A’s were ahead 5-4, the bases were loaded, Watson was in the shower, and Steve Cishek was on the mound. His first pitch to García was a wild pitch, making the score 6-4.
Canha jrounded into a fielder’s choice that plated Andrus, and Laureano’s fly out to center moved Kemp to third, which ended Cishek’s failedattempt to stop the hemorage. José Suárez came in and struck out Lowrie to staunch the flow.
After Smith’s effective outing, Sergio Romo pitched a perfect eighth, giving way to Lou Trivino, who joined Smith and Romo in not having allowed anyone to reach base safely.
The A’s will resume play in the Bay Area on June 25 when they’ll take on the Giants in the first of a three game week end series at Oracle Park. After a day off, they’ll wrestle with the Rangers in another three game series and battle with Boston before taking off for Houston.
