But the thing about close losses is that you have do some good things along the way in order to keep them close. The A’s left Oracle Park with a 1-2 record, but they did win the run differential battle with an 11-10 margin, and when the opposite is true it’s always used as a criticism so it must now count as at least some consolation. Furthermore, some individual players really stepped up. Here are three bright sides amid the series loss.
Starting rotation was great
While the games didn’t always finish the way Oakland wanted, they tended to start well on the pitching side. The rotation delivered three strong starts, ranging from good enough to absolute gem, each time more than keeping the team in the game.
Elvis Andrus and
Matt Olson, and then they pulled a double-steal to move into scoring position.
Matt Chapman followed with a sharp single to knock them both home for a quick 2-0 lead.
That extended Chapman’s hit streak to 15 games, and it was the third time in the last 24 hours that he drove in a go-ahead run. Last night he homered in the 7th to break a tie, and then hit a sac fly in the top of the 10th, in addition to throwing out a potential walk-off run at the plate on defense in the bottom of the 9th.
Photo by Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images
The Oakland A’s got shut out in the 2021 Bay Bridge Series opener, but they’ll go for another try on Saturday against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park.
This time they’ll put
Frankie Montas on the mound. The right-hander got blown up in his last start by the Rangers, for eight runs, but for what it’s worth he at least managed to pitch into the 6th inning. Before that, he had a 3.39 ERA in his pervious 10 outings, half of which registered as quality.
Meanwhile the A’s lineup will need to make some noise tonight. On Friday they totaled only six hits, and two of those were by their own starting pitcher, meaning the position players only put together four hits against Giants pitching. Oakland is averaging 4.4 runs per game through the first eight dates of their current road trip, but that rate drops to 3.1 if you remove their 13-run outburst last Tuesday in Texas.