SAN DIEGO -- Searching for ways to remedy what has been a subpar season to this point for Jacob Lopez, the Athletics switched things up on Sunday.
Rather than have him make his scheduled start, the A’s utilized Luis Medina as the opener with a plan to have Lopez follow out of the bullpen. Ideally, Medina would get the first half of San Diego’s batting order, allowing Lopez a softer landing spot to begin his outing.
The game plan worked about as well as the A’s could have hoped. With the offense jumping out to an early three-run lead, including a home run by Carlos Cortes to lead off the game, Medina and Lopez combined for six innings of one-run ball to help secure a 5-2 victory over the Padres at Petco Park.
“Luis going out and setting the tone was great,” said manager Mark Kotsay. “It fell in line to get Lopez in on [Jackson] Merrill and run him twice through the lineup. We felt good about that matchup for him. There’s a little bit of fatigue setting in, so I thought it was a good opportunity to shorten it up a little bit.”
This is about the time of the year when pitchers around the league start to hit a wall, so Lopez dealing with some fatigue is not uncommon. When they’re going through the type of struggles that have plagued Lopez -- who entered Sunday averaging the fourth-most pitches per inning (18.9) in MLB and having walked the third most batters (30) -- sometimes a different perspective can also help get things back on track.
“There’s definitely something to that,” Kotsay said. “When he comes in and has success like he did today, that definitely will build some confidence, and that’s key. We know how much that can impact a pitcher’s psyche by just going out and getting results.”
It’s too early to say Lopez has righted the ship, but Sunday’s outing was encouraging. He limited the Padres to one run on six hits with three strikeouts across 4 2/3 innings. While his pitch count was probably still too high at 91 pitches for the amount of innings, the fact that Lopez issued only one walk was a positive. He attacked hitters throughout, something that was lacking in his previous outing against the Angels earlier this week, which saw him get bounced after just 3 2/3 innings.
“I really just switched my philosophy a lot since the last outing,” Lopez said. “I just said, ‘I’m going to live and die by just throwing fastballs in the zone.’ That’s kind of what I did today.”
Lopez leaned on both of his fastballs -- four-seam and cutter. Those two offerings accounted for 49 of his 91 pitches and six of his 10 total whiffs.
“He was just attacking the strike zone,” Padres second baseman Fernando Tatis Jr. said of Lopez. “He had all of his pitches in command today. He just mixed really well and probably had the right attack plan today.”
We’ve seen A’s starters in the past benefit from following an opener for a stretch of games, most notably Jeffrey Springs last year as he worked through some first-inning struggles.
The A’s are open to doing something similar with Lopez here going forward, though they’ll weigh their options and see how the state of the bullpen looks before his next turn in the rotation, which would come during next weekend's series against the Yankees.
Starting or following, pitching deeper into games is the goal for Lopez, who has yet to go longer than 5 1/3 innings in his 11 games pitched this season.
“It’s all the same once you get on the mound,” Lopez said. “I have to give length. That’s my job.”
In addition to Lopez bouncing back, the offense was paced by Nick Kurtz, who reached base three times to extend his MLB-leading on-base streak to 47 games. He has now surpassed Rickey Henderson and tied Jimmie Foxx for the second-longest streak in A’s history. The longest on-base streak in A’s history belongs to Mark McGwire, who reached safely in 62 consecutive games between 1995-96.
“When you’re in a conversation with Rickey, it’s pretty cool,” Kurtz said. “He’s such a legend here in the A’s organization. Being in something with him is pretty awesome. … It’s been cool to be consistent and help this ballclub win some games.”
If you narrow it down to single-season streaks, Kurtz is closing on the A’s record, now just one away from tying McGwire (48 in 1996).
Kurtz will carry that streak back to Sutter Health Park, where the first-place A’s (27-26) begin a three-game series Monday night against the second-place Mariners, who will enter trailing by just 2 1/2 games in a bunched-up AL West.