Oakland A’s scare Rangers in a rally that falls just short
Adolis Garcia saw, swung at, and promptly blasted the first ball he saw far above the Coliseum’s left field fence. It was the first of many runs scored against Oakland’s All-Star.
Oakland starter Paul Blackburn’s rude welcome back from his first All-Star appearance saw him give up that titanic two-run blast alongside a RBI double in the first inning of the A’s wild 11-8 loss to the Texas Rangers. Things didn’t get much better for Blackburn in what ended up being one of the most unusual games of the season.
“For me, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see our offense do that and I know I put them in a massive hole to start the game,” Blackburn said.
If Texas’ first inning was all about power, their third inning displayed their ability to play so-called ‘small ball.’ Texas used two singles and a steal to notch another run off the faltering Blackburn.
When Corey Seager got another opportunity against Blackburn in the fifth, he mauled a 91 MPH four-seam fastball into the deepest part of center field and over Ramón Laureano’s outstretched glove. And as a popular Smashmouth song goes, the hits didn’t stop coming for Texas. By the time Oakland manager Mark Kotsay mercifully pulled him from the game, Blackburn’s line read eight earned runs allowed on 10 hits.
“In the first couple innings I felt like I was too quick and I needed to slow down,” Blackburn said. “Then I felt like I was too slow, and I tried to find a happy medium out there. And it just didn’t happen.”
In came David McKay, who happened to be making his A’s debut while pitching for his sixth professional club in 2022. The right hander gave up a couple more hits and pushed Blackburn’s earned run tally to 10 before he finally got out of an inning in which the Rangers batted around.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk with Paul, but what I saw was that he’s fighting himself with his mechanics,” manager Mark Kotsay said.
For the majority of the game, Sunday’s A’s looked more like the unit that had preceded a July uptick in production, and they couldn’t manage more than a walk here or a single there for most of the afternoon.
And then out of nowhere, the A’s slapped relief pitcher Garrett Richards around in the eighth inning. Stephen Piscotty’s homer headlined a four-run inning that could’ve ended up even more disastrous for the Rangers had third baseman Josh Smith not made an outstanding over-the-shoulder grab in shallow left to end the inning.
Sean Murphy hit his 11th home run of the season in the top of the ninth to cut the deficit by a margin, and then Pinder slammed another home run to inch the A’s even closer. Then came Tony Kemp, who went over the right field wall for Oakland’s third home run in as many at-bats. It was the first time the A’s had hit back-to-back home runs since 2006 against, of all teams, the Rangers.
“It was exciting and it was awesome,” Pinder said. “We thought ‘Alright, we’re three runs away. That’s a a walk, a knock and then a big hit.’ It gave us a boost.”
Texas lit up the scoreboard to the tune of 16 total hits with two home runs and three doubles among them. Meanwhile, the A’s totaled 12 hits, six of those for extra-bases with most of those coming after the game was thought to be a rout.
Oakland’s hitters looked like completely different men than the ones who had looked so lost for much of the game against starter Martín Pérez. It seemed as if every A’s hitter was guaranteed to pound the ball in the late stages of the game.
The A’s will have to face a slew of hitters capable of those kinds of big nights on Monday. The division-leading Houston Astros will waltz into the East Bay riding a five-game win streak.