Blogfather here, pinch hitting in the recap aisle. I’m not going to summarize every inning or every run — that’s what Gameday is for. Plus, who wants to “relive” an A’s game in May, 2025?
Here’s all you need to know about May’s swan song. Tyler Soderstrom clobbered a 3-run HR in the top of the 1st to give the A’s and Gunnar Hoglund a 3-0 lead before Hoglund threw a pitch.
Throwing a pitch turned out to be a terrible idea on Hoglund’s part. By the end of the 1st inning the Blue Jays led 4-3 as the A’s rookie, making his 6th big league start, established a pattern of leaving a lot of pitches up and out over the plate. One of them to Addison Barger left the yard with a man on.
Had the pitching woes stopped there the A’s might have put this one into the win column, as they got up off the deck more than once. They retook the lead in the top of the 2nd on a welcome sight: following a Max Schuemann walk, Denzel Clarke ambushed the first pitch from Braydon Fisher and launched his first major league HR into the left field seats. It was a “swung on, gone” for the Canadian from Toronto, with family and friends watching.
Hoglund was, apparently, inspired by the “swung on, gone” theme, as he took only one batter to relinquish the lead, a loud HR off the bat of Bo Bichette. Gunnar then narrowed his favorites down to George Springer, serving up two bombs that each cleared the CF wall by plenty.
All in all an 8 run, 4 HR performance for Hoglund in 6 rocky innings of work, and by the time he departed the A’s trailed 8-5 with the Blue Jays having scored 31 runs in the series’ first 22 innings.
Fast forward to the top of the 9th and the A’s did their best at a comeback against closer Jeff Hoffman. With a man on and the A’s down to their last out, Brent Rooker joined the HR parade with his 13th to cut the lead to 8-7.
Then Soderstrom poked a double down the LF line to put the tying run at 2B. And Shea Langeliers hit a rocket up the middle. Sounds great until you remember these are the May, 2025 A’s, so of course the best player in baseball history, the legendary Ernie Clement, took time off of going 9 for 14 with 2 HR and 3 2B and made a sprawling diving catch to end the game.
All in all, an objective analysis of the game says that the A’s do indeed have some offensive firepower that will only be more evident if Clarke has turned a corner and can contribute more than strikeouts and dejected walks back to the dugout, and that the pitching is a train wreck of alarming proportions.
And of course there are the million “coulda beens”. What if Lawrence Butler hadn’t gotten picked off 2B base while the A’s were rallying in the 7th? What if replay had confirmed that Butler was never tagged, as he passionately insisted? What if Wilson’s deflected comebacker hadn’t caromed to Bichette and Bichette’s reflexive barehand catch and throw hadn’t nipped Wilson by a half step?
But it’s a game of inches — like Shea’s bullet not eluding Clement or we might still be playing — which is in stark contrast to the yards if not miles of separation the A’s have created between themselves and 1st place. Or respectability.
The calendar can’t turn to June soon enough. Thankfully, at midnight it almost certainly will.