ARLINGTON -- A’s manager Bob Melvin is notorious for having certain superstitious tendencies. Asked if he was bothered by the fact that his hot-streaking club was about to play on Friday the 13th, though, he quickly dismissed the ominous date as “not an issue” for him.
Coincidence or not, the A’s snapping their seven-game winning streak with an 8-6 loss to the Rangers at Globe Life Field on Friday night certainly felt like the product of multiple occurrences of bad luck culminating all at once.
Seth Brown’s baserunning mistake in the eighth inning pretty much summarized the way things went for the A’s. Trailing 8-5 at the time with two outs, Brown smacked a double to the right-field corner that scored Matt Chapman and would have seen the tying run come to the plate. Instead, Brown veered too far off second base on the relay from the outfield and was tagged out trying to race back to the bag, thus ending Oakland’s last big threat of the night.
“Coming around, I wanted to get a decent round to see where the throw went,” Brown said. “I got past a little too much, and when I got my head up, the throw was already on the way. I couldn’t react quick enough. Just trying to be aggressive and got a little too much.”
Even on a night that saw continued success from their offense, like Matt Olson bashing his 29th homer of the year, the A’s just couldn’t seem to get out of their own way in what was a rare showing of sloppiness. Their defense, which entered the night with the second-fewest errors (49) in the Majors, committed three costly ones on Friday.
The first two errors came from Starling Marte and Jed Lowrie on back-to-back plays in the first, giving way to what became a three-run opening frame for Texas against A’s starter Cole Irvin. Then, shortly after the A’s stormed back to take a one-run lead with two runs in the top of the sixth, Elvis Andrus began the bottom half by mishandling what appeared to be a routine ground ball hit by Andy Ibáñez. Two batters later, Sergio Romo took over for Irvin and surrendered the lead on the first pitch he threw to Yohel Pozo, who unloaded on a slider for a go-ahead three-run blast that just stayed fair by clanking off the left-field foul pole.
“You look at the defensive numbers and we’re pretty good as far as where we’re rated in the league,” Melvin said. “Just got off to a slow start today. A little bit of a sluggish start. We came back and caught up, then couldn’t hold them down. Not our best game.”
Also rare was the inability to hold down the Rangers' offense in the late innings by the A’s bullpen, which had combined to post a 1.30 ERA (six earned runs in 41 2/3 innings pitched) over the previous 12 games. In addition to Romo giving up a homer, Yusmeiro Petit, who Melvin considers one of his more reliable relief arms, allowed a one-run deficit to expand to three after he was taken deep by DJ Peters for a two-run homer in the seventh.
Romo saw his own personal impressive streak come to a close, with Pozo’s homer ending a span of 17 consecutive games without allowing a run. Over that dominant stretch, he’d held opponents to 3-for-53 (.057) with 19 strikeouts and just four walks in 17 2/3 innings pitched.
“Romo, I can’t remember the last time he’s given up a run,” Melvin said. “He knew the guy was going to be an aggressive swinger and threw him a slider, just didn’t get it where he wanted it to. There are going to be days like that.”
The rarest result came in the final score. Friday marked just the second time this season the A’s have lost a game when scoring six runs or more. They are now 37-2 in such games.
Despite Brown’s mistake on the bases, the fact that he’d doubled for the second time in the game at that point was one of a few encouraging signs for an offense that keeps trending upwards after early-season inconsistencies.
Brown now has three extra-base hits over his last five games. Mitch Moreland, who doubled and tripled on Friday, is swinging as well as anybody in the lineup with two homers, three doubles and a triple through the first four games of the team’s current 10-game road trip. With more contributions as a collective unit -- the A’s .283 batting average entering the day was highest in the American League -- an outcome like Friday’s is easy for the club to flush away.
“We’re seeing some better at-bats across the board,” Melvin said. “It’s what we do when we’re playing well. Our best at-bats come later in the game, as it happened again today. We just gave up a few too many runs after the starter came out, which is uncharacteristic of us.”