The A’s narrowly missed a second opportunity for a sweep on this six-game home stand, taking a 5-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians on Mother’s Day afternoon.
Catcher Roberto Pérez provided the go-ahead runs with a three-run shot (4) to left in the sixth inning, jumping on Ryan Buchter’s first pitch in relief of Daniel Mengden (L, 0-1, 6.75 ERA).
Mengden’s first start of 2019 was shaky.
He allowed just two runs while on the mound, both in the first inning. However, he didn’t miss hard contact in his 5-1/3 innings of work, with multiple line drives and deep fly balls finding fielders. His two other earned runs were driven in on Pérez’s homer.
Mengden said he put himself in too many rough situations early on:
“They put together some tough at-bats off me the first two innings. I think, basically, I fell behind. Fall behind 1-0, 2-1, stuff like that…leverage counts. They put good at-bats together.”
Cleveland starter Jefry Rodriguez (W, 1-2, 2.92 ERA) kept the A’s in check during his six innings. A two-run third inning, which featured three of his six hits allowed, was the only stretch where he looked vulnerable. His final line featured three earned runs, three strikeouts and three walks.
Despite the loss, Oakland still had a successful home stand, posting a 4-2 record and getting solid appearances from their pitching staff — which of course includes Mike Fiers’ no-hitter on May 7.
Manager Bob Melvin is proud of his team’s resilience as it continues to seek offensive consistency:
“We won four out of six here, with not playing our best baseball, still. So, when you’re not playing great, you gotta find ways to win the games. We did’ em. Some obviously dramatic, late. The offense still isn’t where we expect it to be. It will come around. We’ll go back on the road and hopefully the offense picks up some.”
Matt Olson was happy to see the team bounce back before heading back out on the road:
“After that tough road trip last week, we come in and get two series wins. We didn’t sweep ‘em today, but if we keep winning series we’ll be in a good spot.”
Olson, who hit his first home run of the season in his sixth game back from the injured list, shares his skipper’s optimism:
“I was talking about this yesterday — it takes a good team to win the games when [they’re] not really clicking on all cylinders. I feel like that’s how we’ve been playing lately. We’re gonna get on track here at some point and hopefully get on a roll.”
Oakland begins a nine-game road trip in Seattle on Monday, where Mike Fiers (33, 5.48 ERA) will make his first post-no-hitter start opposite Yusei Kikuchi (2-1, 3.54 ERA).
Khris Davis went 2-for-4 on Sunday after missing the last three games with a hip injury. …Stephen Piscotty extended his on-base streak to 13 games. …Josh Phegley threw out two of three stolen base attempts on Sunday, making it three consecutive games he’s thrown out a base stealer.
Kalama Hines is SFBay’s sports director and Oakland Athletics beat writer. Follow @SFBay and @HineSight_2020 on Twitter and at SFBay.ca for full coverage of A’s baseball.
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