Danny Valencia’s day off not lack-of-hustle related

HOUSTON — Third baseman Danny Valencia was out of the lineup Saturday against the Astros, but it was not related to his lack of hustle on a grounder a few nights earlier, which had earned him a chewing out from manager Bob Melvin.

Earlier in the season, Valencia had the OK to occasionally take it easy on grounders that were clearly going to be outs because he was coming back from a hamstring injury.

Valencia is dealing with some right shoulder soreness, he said.

Melvin said Valencia was out of the lineup to keep him healthy and also to get utility player Tyler Ladendorf some at-bats, plus, Melvin said, it gave him a big bat available on the bench if needed.

The A’s are on a nice little roll defensively, playing error-free for 15 consecutive games, a franchise record.

Infield coach Washington has had a tremendous impact on shortstop Marcus Semien, who does early work with Washington every day and who has eight errors in 88 games this season after making a franchise record 35 errors last year.

Oakland made 53 errors in the first 73 games of the season and still had the fifth highest total in the league through Friday.

“It’s been a little bit of a process during the season, our overall numbers don’t look great but here recently they’ve been really good, and I’d like to think it’s because of hard work,” Melvin said.

Susan Slusser is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

All-Star Game, San Diego

The American League had an opening for a reliever when Boston’s Craig Kimbrel went on the DL, but the All-Star spot went to Toronto’s Aaron Sanchez rather than record-setting rookie Ryan Dull.