CINCINNATI -- On the heels of a difficult 1-6 homestand over the weekend, Athletics manager Mark Kotsay finished his assessment of the club’s struggles over the week with a simple message heading into this current six-game road trip.
“They need to come out on the road trip and play good quality baseball,” Kotsay said. “Win a baseball game. That’s where we’re at right now. We need to go out and win a baseball game.”
That win remained elusive on the first leg of the trip. Brian Serven inched the A’s within one run in the ninth by crushing a two-run home run with two outs, but the last-gasp comeback attempt fell short in an eventual 6-5 loss to the Reds on Thursday afternoon at Great American Ball Park, their eighth consecutive defeat.
On the surface, the A’s played a close series with Cincinnati despite getting swept, with all three games resulting in one-run losses. In reality, this series was a microcosm of the many things that have gone wrong during a brutal stretch that is going on over a month, with the A's now having lost 28 of their last 33 games.
“Missed opportunities,” Kotsay said of the series. “Again, it’s about executing. Being able to make big league plays, make big league pitches and win ballgames. We’re struggling with that. Until we figure that out, we’re going to have to continue to grind. The effort level is there.”
With the game tied at 3 in the bottom of the fifth, A’s starter Mason Barnett was pulled after loading the bases with one out. Kotsay turned to right-hander Elvis Alvarado, who struck out Tyler Stephenson for the second out of the inning before issuing a four-pitch walk to Eugenio Suárez and five-pitch walk to Dane Myers, plating two runs for the Reds.
“The job that Alvarado needs to do, he executed excellent pitches against Stephenson, and I can’t explain what happened after,” Kotsay said. “I really can’t. To go four straight [balls] on Suárez, a hitter that wasn’t having a lot of success this year, it’s a situation where he needs to be in attack mode. He needs to go right after him and throw strikes. If we get beat with a base hit there, that’s different than walking the next two guys and giving them two runs. So, pretty frustrating from that standpoint. You look at [Alvarado’s] track record and there’s ability. … We need to see him be better in that situation.”
Alvarado is far from the only struggling A’s reliever. In fact, each game of this series saw a different bullpen arm falter. In Tuesday’s series opener, Hogan Harris blew a one-run lead in the eighth by allowing two runs to score on a pair of wild pitches. On Tuesday, Hayden Juenger was unable to hold a 2-2 tie as he allowed a go-ahead run in the sixth.
This dreadful stretch is not just on one unit. It’s a collective struggle. Entering Thursday’s series finale, the A’s were averaging 3.0 runs per game over their last 11 games, second fewest behind only the Angels (2.50) during that period. In that same stretch, the A’s 6.00 team ERA and 6.80 bullpen ERA were both worst in MLB, with their six blown leads during that span trailing only the Dodgers (8).
There were some positives on the pitching side. J.T. Ginn returned from the IL and notched a quality start Tuesday, while Jacob Lopez followed that up with a season-high nine strikeouts in a solid outing Wednesday.
From a bullpen standpoint, newcomer Seth Johnson, acquired in a trade with the Phillies for Colby Thomas earlier this week, made his A’s debut Thursday and struck out four batters in two innings, with his only blemish a solo homer by JJ Bleday. Scott Blewett, acquired from the Cardinals on July 26, continued a strong start to his A’s career with two scoreless innings to keep the game close in Wednesday’s loss.
At some point, though, the A’s need to start seeing results. They have not won back-to-back games since June 25-26 and have dropped 12 consecutive series. Things don’t get any easier this weekend, with a three-game series against the Red Sox at Fenway Park on tap.
“You better go in there ready to play,” Kotsay said of his message to the team. “This is a team that is playing their best baseball for an extended period of time now. We have to come out tomorrow and set a tone from the get-go.”