Athletics Fall To Angels In Extras 2-1

Always tough to lose on a walk-off

The Athletics dropped their 13th straight road game on Tuesday night, losing the second of three games in Los Angeles to the division-rival Angels 2-1 in embarrassing walk-off fashion. At least we didn’t get no-hit?

We had a genuine pitching duel tonight between these two team’s starting pitchers. Right-hander Mitch Spence was on the mound for just his second start of the season, and he was opposed by Angels righty Jose Soriano. Neither team’s batters looked comfortable in the batter’s box tonight against these two pitchers.

The first half of this game saw a grand total of three hits from both teams, all from the Angels. The Athletics were clueless against Soriano for five full innings, only drawing two walks and threatening to get no-hit. Even though Los Angeles had the “offense” tonight, they couldn’t do anything with their chances against Spence, who looked quite solid for the second time in a row.

• Mitch Spence: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 75 pitches

That’s now back-to-back quality starts during which he allowed just one run in 10 innings. Who else thinks he deserves another start? It’s quite baffling looking back at how the A’s treated Spence and the starting rotation at the start of the season. After making 24 starts last year as a rookie he was sent to the bullpen without seemingly getting a fair chance at returning to the starting rotation, which was his best role. He’s never going to be a world-beating ace but he was more than serviceable as a rookie and the club should have always tried encouraging his development as a starting pitcher. Hopefully they’ve learned their lesson when it comes to Spence and just give him the ball every fifth day for the rest of the season. Worst case scenario, he gets hit hard the rest of the way and isn’t a viable starting option, joining all the other arms the A’s have tried out in recent years. Best case? The club has a young and controllable back-end starter with the potential to rise up to mid-rotation if he continues growing as a pitcher. His next start lines up against the Houston Astros next week, and he’ll take a 3.67 ERA into that contest.

Even though they were getting no-hit, the Athletics would be the first team to score tonight. Still with no hits but with Max Schuemann on first thanks to a walk, Brent Rooker came to the plate and played hero, hitting a towering ball to center field that clanked off the wall for the team’s first hit of the night and bringing Schuemann around to score:

That wasn’t only the club’s first hit tonight (thus avoiding a dreaded no-hitter), that would also be the team’s first of three doubles over the next few innings. The only difference was that the A’s didn’t have a runner at first ready to score, instead wasting all those extra-base hits.

The Angels meanwhile were still scoreless themselves but finally into the Athletics’ league-worst bullpen. Recently returned right-hander Michael Kelly came on in relief of Spence and posted a pair of scoreless innings, but TJ McFarland gave the lead away when his first pitch of the eighth inning was deposited over the outfield wall to tie this game up 1-1 on a solo homer from Halos pinch-hitter Travis d’Arnaud. Tyler Ferguson needed to come in afterwards to clean up the mess, and he also pitched the bottom of the ninth to help send this game to extras.

That’s where this game always seemed to be headed and it finally came to a head. The A’s wasted their extra-inning ghost runner by striking out twice and grounding out, but LA cashed in against A’s reliever Hogan Harris with a two-out RBI single to end this game, sending the A’s home losers with their 43rd loss of the season.

It didn’t look good early while the A’s were getting no-hit, then we had a brief glimmer of hope with Rook’s RBI double, then we had our evening ruined with a walk-off loss in extra innings to the Angels. Not a great night from the offense but the pitching did more than pull its weight. Spence was awesome for five frame and almost certainly earned another start, and outside of a couple back-breaking mistakes the bullpen did it’s job for 4 ²⁄₃ innings. Can’t win them all. The team is now 27-43 heading into tomorrow.

The club wraps up the series tomorrow afternoon with a pitching matchup between JP Sears against Kyle Hendricks. The left-handed Sears will try to get his season back on track after a rough recent stretch that’s seen his ERA spike from 2.80 to 5.40 after five starts. The veteran Hendricks meanwhile has been mediocre at best for the Angels but has also avoided game-ending meltdowns. Tomorrow represented the best pitching matchup the club faced this week against their division rivals and is now the last chance for the team to escape Southern California with a win.