WEST SACRAMENTO – Entering the night on a season-high losing streak coupled with the loss of a starting pitcher to injury for the second time this week, the Athletics desperately needed someone to step up and get things back on track.
J.T. Ginn answered the call, allowing just one unearned run across six innings on Saturday night at Sutter Health Park. That start, along with the slugging trio of Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom and Nick Kurtz each homering to provide the majority of the offense, was enough for the A’s to snap a four-game losing skid with a 6-4 victory over the Yankees.
Kurtz’s two-run blast off Ryan Weathers in the seventh proved crucial, as the A’s bullpen allowed a five-run lead to shrink to a two-run lead with five walks in the ninth before Scott Barlow retired Jazz Chisholm Jr. on a bases-loaded groundout to escape with the win.
On a day that began with the A’s learning that their ace Luis Severino will be out for some time with a right shoulder strain, Ginn showed why the A’s believe in his potential as a frontline starter by limiting the Yankees to four hits and three walks with four strikeouts. The only run New York scored off him was a result of back-to-back errors by the A’s defense in the fourth.
Ginn’s run of success is stretching beyond just a small sample size. Since moving from the bullpen into the rotation on April 10, the 27-year-old righty holds a 2.56 ERA in 10 starts, and the A’s are 7-3 in those games.
“This kid has been throwing the baseball really well,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “Tonight, he attacked. The changeup was a weapon that really allowed him to keep these guys off-balance. He kept the ball down all night, which is a strength of J.T.’s, and he really mixed a cutter in nicely.”
The Yankees stacked their starting lineup with six left-handed hitters. In the past, this might have spelled doom for Ginn. But this year’s version of himself is different, as he showed by holding those six lefties to 3-for-14 with two walks.
For the season, Ginn has held left-handed hitters to a .227 batting average and .703 OPS, a dramatic improvement from the .340 batting average and 1.046 OPS lefties posted against him last season.
The reason for this newfound success? Kotsay and Ginn both pointed to his enhanced assortment of pitches. Ginn has gained a better feel for his changeup and cutter, which has helped make him much more effective against lefties.
"Finding a more consistent pitch mix and a couple other ways to get them out has been huge for me,” Ginn said. “Mixing in the cutter, four-seam and changeup more, just really expanding my arsenal against them.”
Ginn has been mostly solid throughout the year, having allowed two earned runs or fewer in eight of his 10 starts. The true flashes of dominance, however, have become much more frequent. Over the past few weeks, Ginn went into Philadelphia and silenced a potent Phillies lineup over eight innings of one-run ball, then carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning at Angel Stadium before painfully losing it in walk-off fashion.
The talent has always been there for Ginn, a former top prospect. The difference now is that he’s constantly on the attack no matter who steps into the box, firing pitches in the zone rather than trying to be too fine with pitches on the edges. On Saturday, he fired strikes on 51 of his 80 pitches and got ahead often with first-pitch strikes to 15 of his 24 batters faced.
“He’s got a lot of confidence right now in using his movement in the zone effectively,” Kotsay said. “J.T. beats himself a lot of times when he puts runners on base. Tonight, he didn’t do that.”
Just as important as getting this type of performance from Ginn going forward would be more of this display of power by the offense that has been inconsistent. Their identity is that of a club that relies heavily on the long ball, and the A’s (28-30) will need that to recoup the ground they lost in the American League West this week by falling from first place to second place.
“We talked about not having a lead in the last four games,” Kotsay said. “Our success lies in that area when the offense can get us a lead and add on. We did both of those things tonight, which helped at the end.”