Vogt, A's keep enduring Wild Card nightmare

KANSAS CITY -- On a night Stephen Vogt should've been celebrating his first multi-home run game, the A's catcher instead spent much of his postgame session with the media lamenting moments of a 6-4 loss to the Royals that "brought back a lot of memories" of last year's heartbreaking American League Wild Card Game loss at Kauffman Stadium.

"I felt like we had a ton of barrels right at people, and I felt there were a lot of non-barrels not at people for them," Vogt said. "That's the way this game goes sometimes. It was eerily similar to six months ago."

A's starter Sonny Gray was on the hook for four runs over six innings and a career-high 11 hits, five of them strung together consecutively with two out in the third. Most were seeing-eye singles through the right side.

"Honestly, if I pitched against these guys tomorrow, I don't think I'd really change anything," Gray said. "I feel like I made a bunch of good pitches, and everything they hit seemed to sneak through."

It was Dan Otero, though, who took the loss, like he did in the Wild Card Game. The right-hander, who entered a tie game in the eighth, offered up a leadoff single to Salvador Perez, and Paulo Orlando came up with the go-ahead triple through the right-center gap on an 0-2 sinker. Omar Infante's sacrifice fly extended the Royals' lead to 6-4.

"I've got to do a better job of putting up zeros and giving our offense a chance late," Otero said. "I missed my spot by probably 18 inches trying to come hard in. Just came back over, outside corner."

Vogt's home runs, both game-tying shots to right field off Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie, were suddenly an afterthought.

"They felt good, though," he said, smiling.

"He picked us up twice," Gray said. "For him to get us right back in the game, it's huge. He's that kind of player for us."