The Oakland A’s know they’re not playing great baseball. Though in shooting distance of first place in the American League West still, the A’s aren’t even playing good baseball.
They weren’t at their best in a 3-2 to the Texas Rangers on Friday night in Arlington, and really the Rangers haven’t seen the A’s at their best. The division foes didn’t face off until June 21 in the middle of Oakland’s 20-game stretch in which the A’s have gone 7-13 and Rangers have won five of the eight games played between them so far.
The diagnosis is the team is out of sync. Without Mark Canha, Mitch Moreland and now Chad Pinder, the offense can’t buy a run in big moments or create separation with big hits or rallies. Six of their last seven games have been decided by one run. During this rough offensive stretch, the A’s starters have — with some exceptions — kept the team in striking distance of the lead.
The A’s could benefit from the upcoming All-Star break.
“Nobody’s panicking around here. We know we’ve got a solid squad,” Olson said. “We’ve got Canha and Pinder out now, Mitch, we’re just kind of treading water right now and try to come out and win this series the next few days, have a little All-Star break, hit the reset button and have the second half that we normally do.”
The A’s scoring woes: Friday’s loss was rife with missed opportunities. A pivotal one came with the bases loaded for Olson in seventh. He sent Rangers reliever Josh Sborz’s fastball 110 mph into right field into the shift for an inning-ending out.
Seth Brown lined out to first baseman Andy Ibanez, who doubled off Ramón Laureano at first base to extinguish a rally against Texas starter Jordan Lyles.
They scratched two runs across. The first when Elvis Andrus singled, Olson hit a double with a 115 exit velocity and Jed Lowrie drew a walk. Sean Murphy’s groundout scored Andrus from third for the A’s first run.
Matt Chapman, who is riding a 24-game on-base streak, turned a single up the middle into a hustle double to start the sixth. Chapman was called out at second, but deemed safe on replay — Jed Lowrie made it pay with an RBI single. Lowrie has a .397 average with runners in scoring position, third best in the major leagues behind Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.413) and San Diego’s Manny Machado (.409).
“We’ve been grinding a little bit to push runs across,” Olson said. “Throughout the year you’re going to have some rough ones here and there, but as a whole they’ve been awesome and given us a chance to win games and starters have gone deep into games. The offense has left them out to dry here and there and we just are struggling to find a way to win games right now, which is not ideal, but we’ve talked about it a lot. Nobody is panicking around here. We know we got a solid squad.”
The starting pitching: Cole Irvin took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, but things escalated quickly after Eli White’s infield hit led to singles from Charlie Culberson — interrupted by Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit by a pitch — and Ibanez, the latter scoring the Rangers’ first run and booting Irvin from the game without recording an out.
In relief, Sergio Romo gave up a go-ahead two-run single to Adolis Garcia on a hanging slider, but rung up back-to-back batters and a pop out to strand the bases loaded in the sixth, but the Rangers escaped with a 3-2 lead. The A’s couldn’t regain the lead.
“That should give us some momentum coming back in the dugout,” manager Bob Melvin said. “And we just couldn’t get a big hit.”
Irvin shouldered three earned runs, struck out five and walked none in his five-inning outing. It marked his first loss since May 30.
“It came down to execution and the biggest thing is I looked up right after giving up that hit and realized why everyone was cheering,” Irvin said. “I was pretty locked in those first five innings and I wasn’t looking up. I let that one get away from us.
“I need to bear down and get back to creating a rhythm there. That’s what it came down to was just I lost my rhythm.”
The A’s starters are entered Friday’s game with a 15-9 record and 3.04 ERA over their last 32 starts. The team is out of sync. Olson pointed to this team’s recent history as a second-half team — where they’ve done their damage and strongest playoff pushes every season since 2018. They’ll need to re-align to do it again.
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Cole Irvin takes no-hitter into the sixth, but A’s lose to Rangers - Vacaville Reporter
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