OAKLAND -- Based on his undesirable start to the season, it would have been easy for Ken Waldichuk to fall into a dark place on the mound as he began Tuesday’s outing by loading the bases in the first inning with only one out.

Instead, Waldichuk dug deep. Facing a hot-hitting Cubs lineup that was fresh off a 10-run, 20-hit performance against Oakland the night before, the 25-year-old left-hander worked himself out of the jam without allowing a run by retiring Patrick Wisdom and Cody Bellinger on a pair of flyouts.

“That was a big relief,” Waldichuk said. “Things could have snowballed there. Once I got out of that, I knew I was going to have a chance to go later into the game.”

That escape job set the stage for what was easily Waldichuk’s best outing of the season so far, as he scattered five hits and three walks with five strikeouts across five shutout innings in the A’s 4-0 loss to the Cubs at the Coliseum.

Over his first two starts, Waldichuk allowed 14 runs, including seven home runs, in 8 2/3 innings. Tuesday’s scoreless effort continued an encouraging upward trend that began in his previous outing on April 12 in Baltimore, when he turned in a quality start by allowing three runs on five hits, pitching into the seventh.

“I wish I could have gone more than five today,” Waldichuk said. “But to get out of this one unscathed was pretty big for me.”

Waldichuk, who just last week graduated from MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects List, entered 2023 with high expectations. In the second year of a rebuild, the A’s want to see him develop into a rotation stalwart. If he's able to replicate Tuesday's outing in future starts, it would serve as an example of what he can bring to the table.

Of his five hits allowed, four were singles. When the Cubs did make contact, it was mostly weak, with their 15 balls in play against Waldichuk carrying an average exit velocity of 90.2 mph.

“I think he’s got conviction to his changeup,” manager Mark Kotsay said of Waldichuk. “We saw that tonight. The changeup is a really good pitch. It disrupts the timing of the hitters. If you’ve got a good changeup, it makes your fastball play up, which I think we saw tonight. Hitters’ timing was off. 

“He really commanded the baseball and threw strikes," continued Kotsay. "I don’t know the percentage of changeups tonight, but I’m going to assume that it was a lot more than his previous outings.”

Kotsay’s intuition was correct. Entering Tuesday’s game, Waldichuk had never thrown more than 20 changeups in a single start. Against Chicago, he threw it 26 times, generating 16 swings and nine whiffs on the pitch.

“It’s definitely big to have,” Waldichuk said of his changeup. “It moves away. I feel like my fastball gets some good carry. My slider breaks in. To have something that carries, breaks in and moves away, that’s really big and crucial to success.”

Waldichuk’s strong performance was not enough on a night in which the A’s offense was shut down by Marcus Stroman and the Cubs’ bullpen. It marked the seventh time in 18 games Oakland has been held to one or no runs, which stands as the most such games in the Majors this season.

“These pitchers the last two nights have attacked us and thrown strikes,” Kotsay said. “They really haven’t given us a chance to take a free base, and you tip your cap to that.”