WEST SACRAMENTO -- Jonah Heim wasn’t originally in the Athletics’ lineup on Sunday, but when teammate Jeff McNeil arrived at Sutter Health Park under the weather, Heim knew he had better be ready.
Sure enough, McNeil was a late scratch with an illness. The A’s needed a replacement at designated hitter, and Heim was prepared.
“You never stay checked out,” Heim said. “You’ve always got to be locked in until the last out’s made.”
Such was the case not only for Heim but for the A’s as a whole in a wild 9-8 loss to Miami to cap a three-game Marlins sweep in West Sacramento. The close scoreline belied a game in which the A’s were dominated through seven perfect innings for Miami starter Eury Pérez, then mounted a last-second rally that nearly turned into an improbable victory.
Key word: nearly. When catcher Brian Serven grounded out to second base for the game’s final out, reality set in. The A’s finished their six-game homestand with a 1-5 record and are winless in their past nine series at Sutter Health Park. As they prepare to close out the first half with road series against the Tigers and White Sox, they are 41-49 and currently sit in fourth place in the American League West, 5 1/2 games behind the division-leading Mariners.
And yet, it was hard not to sense some optimism after an impressive comeback nearly came to fruition.
“We didn’t quit at any point in today’s game, and we put up a fight ’til the end,” Heim said. “I think it was a good team showing. Obviously, we didn’t get the win, but this is a game we can build off of and take into Detroit.”
Not much went well for the A’s through the ballgame’s first seven innings. They trailed 6-0 by the time starter Gage Jump left the game after three frames. He allowed eight hits, walked three and gave up two home runs.
It was the third straight subpar outing for an A’s starter after Jack Perkins gave up seven runs in 3 2/3 innings on Friday and Aaron Civale allowed four in 4 2/3 frames on Saturday. The A’s rotation has a 5.23 ERA, the highest in the AL and the second highest in MLB.
“We’re at a point where our starting pitching, as I said last night, needs to perform better,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “They know that as a group. We’ve addressed it. Now we’ve got to make a change. That’s something we’re in the middle of right now, really getting the details to how we’re going to go about attacking and pitching going forward.”
Sunday revealed a stark contrast between Jump -- who was hit hard for the second straight start -- and the Marlins’ Pérez.
The A’s struck out eight times against the hard-throwing righty, who allowed only four hard-hit balls and induced 12 swinging strikes.
When Pérez was surprisingly lifted from the contest after seven perfect innings and 92 pitches, the A’s couldn’t help but take a breath.
“We were excited to get him out of the game,” Kotsay said.
It showed. Lawrence Butler broke up the perfect game by drawing a leadoff walk against reliever Lake Bachar in the eighth, and rookie shortstop Joshua Kuroda-Grauer ended the no-hitter with a bloop hit to right field. After Carlos Cortes laced a double and Max Muncy drew a walk, Heim hammered a grand slam to right field to make it an 8-5 game in practically an instant.
After a Marlins insurance run in the top of the ninth, Heim -- who has already had his share of clutch moments in an A’s uniform -- came up big again with a two-out, two-run single up the middle in the bottom half of the inning, cutting the lead to one.
“For us offensively, I was happy with the performance there in the eighth and the ninth inning,” Kotsay said. “The starter had dominated us. It would have been easy to put the bats in the rack and not go up and grind those at-bats and make it a competitive game.”
The A’s certainly didn’t roll over, but they couldn’t turn what had looked like a laugher into a victory, either. As they packed their bags for their final week of play before the All-Star break, all the A’s could do was hope their late-inning surge might carry over.
“Getting swept at home is never ideal,” Heim said. “We’ve got to try to take the positives of what the homestand brought.”