BALTIMORE -- After rallying late for a thrilling extra-inning win in Friday’s series opener, the A’s came out flat on a cold, gray Saturday at Oriole Park. Their trouble against left-handed pitching continued against old friend Cole Irvin, who outpitched JP Sears to hand Oakland a 7-0 loss to Baltimore and set up Sunday’s rubber game series finale.

Here are a few relevant numbers from the game and what they mean going forward for the A’s.

.625
A’s OPS against left-handed pitching

The A’s are a respectable 11-17 through 28 games, good for third place in the American League West and far outpacing their 112 losses from 2023. It’s mostly a testament to their pitching and defense, as the offense has slugged at a strong clip but struggled overall. Those difficulties have been exacerbated facing left-handed pitching, against whom the A’s are hitting only .201/.258/.367 as a team. Their .625 OPS against southpaws ranks 24th in the Majors, their average 26th, their OBP 28th.

On Saturday, that trend played out in real time against the lefty Irvin, who held the A’s to just four singles across seven scoreless innings. The A’s didn’t manage a baserunner until Tyler Nevin’s fourth-inning single and did not record an extra-base hit for the first time this season.

“We’ve seen that from [Irvin] when he was with the A’s,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “His location was great today. His front-door two-seamer was locking guys up a lot. He was jamming guys with his cutter. He had a good mix, pitched great and sometimes you need to tip your cap.”

The good news for the A’s is that, against lefties, there appears to be a path toward improvement. Two of the team’s most important right-handed hitters, Brent Rooker (.207 average, 5 HR) and Shea Langeliers (.165 average, .603 OPS), are working through slow starts, as was right-handed hitting Zack Gelof before he landed on the injured list last week. J.D. Davis is also trending toward a return from a groin strain that’s sidelined him since April 16.

Once Gelof and Davis return healthy and Rooker and Langeliers get clicking, the middle of the A’s order could soon be a minefield for left-handed pitching despite the results so far.

“Creating offense is an area we are really trying to get better at,” Kotsay said. “It’s not unknown that we are second-to-last in the league in scoring runs. We talked about it yesterday, as an offense, about creating more opportunity to score runs without the long ball.”

68.4 percent and .517
JP Sears’ hard-hit rate and expected slugging percentage against with two outs (entering Saturday)

On the other side of the coin was a paradoxical outing from Sears, who struck out eight, only walked one and pitched into the seventh but also tied a career high with seven runs allowed. Coming off three strong outings against good teams, Sears was sharp at times Saturday but had trouble avoiding big innings.

He retired his first nine batters and 11 of his first 12 but then coughed up three runs in the fourth and back-to-back Adley Rutschman and Ryan Mountcastle homers in the fifth -- all with two outs. His final line would’ve looked a lot better had Gunnar Henderson not deposited his final pitch into the right-field seats for a two-run homer in the seventh.

“It’s a frustrating one,” Sears said. “I felt like I had a really good game plan coming in and made a lot of really good pitches. I just struggled to get that third out in a couple of innings.”

For Sears, the two-out trouble is both a departure from the norm and something of a lingering issue. Sears’ results this season with two strikes (.145/.200/.182 slash against) and with two outs (.185/.230/.370) are all near or above league average and have led to a lot of the lefty’s early success. He’d only allowed five two-out hits (one HR) through his first five starts (27 at-bats).

On Saturday, he gave up six hits with two outs in the fourth and fifth innings alone, including the home runs on consecutive pitches.

“Just not being able to finish things off,” Kotsay said. “It spiraled there.”

That said, even when the results have gone Sears’ way, his underlying metrics in those situations haven’t always told the same story. Entering Saturday, his 68.4 percent hard-hit rate with two outs was the highest among 107 pitchers with at least 30 batters faced in those situations. Four of the eight batted balls Sears allowed with two outs in Saturday’s fourth and fifth innings were hard hit (exit velocity above 95 mph), per Statcast.

“Sometimes you have to look back on it, see what you did wrong in those couple pitches and bear down next time, and just know you were always one pitch away from getting that last out,” Sears said.