SAN DIEGO -- If you told a pitcher before a start that he’s going to work into the seventh inning having allowed only three hits, any of them would sign up for that in a heartbeat.
Jeffrey Springs had that exact scenario on Friday. The left-hander was missing barrels and generating weak contact for most of the night, retiring 17 of his first 22 batters faced. By the time he exited with one out in the seventh, however, his three hits allowed were a trio of home runs that resulted in four runs, creating a deficit the Athletics could not overcome in a 7-3 loss to the Padres at Petco Park.
“Never seems to fail,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “Three mistakes and you end up on the wrong end of it. He threw the ball really well. I really liked how he was just mixing pitches. His changeup was plus and he had them off-balance most of the night.”
Yes, the Padres added on some late insurance runs in the eighth. But up until that point, the game had essentially come down to three pitches. Let’s take a closer look at each:
Manny Machado’s first-inning two-run homer (0-1 fastball)
After the A’s jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first on an RBI double by Nick Kurtz – who pushed his MLB-leading on-base streak to 45 games – and a run-scoring groundout by Brent Rooker, it took only one swing from Machado to tie it up in the bottom half.
By no means was the pitch in a bad location. Springs elevated a fastball up over the zone that looked like it should be too high for Machado to reach.
“He’s a good hitter,” Springs said. “That fastball just needs to probably be in more so that, hopefully, he can’t get to it.”
Nick Castellanos’ game-tying solo shot in the fifth (first-pitch sweeper)
Henry Bolte’s go-ahead RBI single in the fourth was negated one inning later when Castellanos turned on a sweeper thrown inside but slightly up in the lower half of the zone.
Ramón Laureano’s go-ahead solo blast in the seventh (3-2 changeup)
This changeup also did not look to be in a terrible location as Springs fired it low in the zone, but Laureano connected on the full-count offering and sent a towering homer a Statcast-projected 401 feet to left.
“My pitches on the first two homers, I felt like they were decent pitches,” Springs said. “Tip your cap to them. Last one, I just kind of yanked it down and in. It’s frustrating. I feel like I kind of just killed the momentum and let them take it.”
With Springs at 85 pitches through six and right-hander Jack Perkins ready to go in the bullpen, Kotsay kept the lefty in to begin the seventh despite three right-handed hitters -- Xander Bogaerts, Laureano and Castellanos -- due up. There were a couple of reasons for this.
One, Bogaerts was held in check in three at-bats against Springs, while Laureano entered the night homerless with a .171 batting average (6-for-35) against left-handers.
Two, and perhaps most importantly, the A’s are in the middle of a stretch of 16 games in 16 days. Their bullpen has been worked hard. With that in mind, Kotsay was looking to squeeze as much as he could out of Springs.
“We’re trying to stretch out the starters,” Kotsay said. “The matchup [with Laureano], as well as how Springs was throwing, we got beat with a homer. That decision is on me.”
In all, Friday was a mostly well-played game that the A's (26-25) just came up short in. There were, however, a few baserunning mistakes. Tyler Soderstrom was thrown out trying to take second to end the first, then was nabbed trying to push a single into a double in the eighth. Bolte, meanwhile, was caught trying to steal second by catcher Rodolfo Durán shortly after his fourth-inning RBI single.
These are the little things the A’s can’t afford to mess up over a stretch that will see them play a slew of contenders in the Padres, Mariners, Yankees and Cubs over the next two weeks.
“I liked [Soderstrom’s] aggressiveness trying to get a double,” Kotsay said. “We were down one. They made a perfect throw and it killed the momentum of the inning. Earlier with baserunners, Sodey running into an out there in the first with two outs, not great. Those are things that we can do better with.”