OAKLAND -- With the roll the A’s have been on over the past couple of weeks, you almost expected something magical to happen in the late innings. But all the A’s felt on Tuesday night was frustration as their winning streak came to an end.

Entering the night unscored upon in 13 of his last 15 appearances, A’s reliever Joakim Soria thought he was about to continue the strong run with a scoreless ninth, but a 1-2 curveball to the Angels' Shohei Ohtani that appeared to be in the strike zone was called a ball after Josh Phegley was unable to hold onto it. Two pitches later, Ohtani smacked a two-run tiebreaking single that ended up being the difference in a 6-4 loss to snap the A’s season-high winning streak at 10 games.

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Soria induced a groundout against Albert Pujols to finish the inning and had some words for home plate umpire James Hoye as he walked off the mound. A’s manager Bob Melvin rushed out trying to defuse the situation, but Hoye had already ejected Soria by that time.

Upset at the time of the ejection, Soria was more understanding about what had transpired about 20 minutes prior as he spoke to reporters after the game.

“It’s part of the game. There’s a human factor, and that’s the beauty of the game,” Soria said. “I understand he’s human. He thought it was a ball and he called it. The only problem is that because of the mistake, I gave up two runs and we lost the game. I understand the fact that they have to call too many pitches during the game, but in that specific situation, you cannot miss. He’s going to make mistakes like we do, but he’s there for a reason, too. It’s part of the game. You have to love it.”

Though Soria did not agree with Hoye’s call, he also realized he did himself no favors prior to the Ohtani at-bat by allowing the previous two batters to reach base with two outs. Not being fully focused on the next two pitches to Ohtani after the call also resulted in the fastball that was lined into right field.

“Bottom line I have to execute the next pitch,” Soria said. “I didn’t do it and he hit a base hit to score two runs. You have to move on. That was my mistake, too. You have to keep your mind on the game and execute the next pitch.”

With the best view in the stadium behind home plate, Phegley said the pitch may have been borderline, but not being able to hang on to the pitch in that situation was costly.

“It’s a tough pitch on the outer half. I was set up on the inner half, but I have to catch the ball,” Phegley said. “I could have given us a better chance by catching it there.”

The A’s still had one more chance to come back in the bottom half and had already overcome a three-run deficit to tie the game earlier, but the feeling by that point was akin to a balloon that was slowly deflating. Save for a Phegley walk, the A’s went down quietly against Angels closer Hansel Robles.

“We felt like the game was in our hands,” Phegley said. “We clawed back all game and if we kept it tied going into the bottom half there, we feel like we would have walked them off. We just have to put this behind us.”

Rare off-night for Montas

Frankie Montas turned in his shortest outing of the year, lasting just four innings as he allowed four runs on four hits with five strikeouts. Command was the right-hander’s biggest issue. He built up a high pitch count early as he walked a season-high five batters before exiting the game at 96 pitches.

Montas was done in by a second inning which saw the Angels bat around to score four runs. There wasn’t a lot of hard contact -- a couple of bloop singles led to two runs -- but Tommy La Stella blasted a two-run double off the wall in center, and the Angels made Montas work by fouling several pitches off.

In what was his 11th start, Tuesday night was the first time Montas had allowed more than three earned runs in an outing this season.

“There are going to be days where you don’t have your best stuff, but you have to continue competing. That’s all I was trying to do today,” Montas said. “Get as much hitters as I can to save the bullpen, and keep the team in the game.”

Montas was picked up by his offense, which continued its home run barrage with dingers by Marcus Semien, Ramon Laureano and Matt Olson, giving the A’s 33 home runs over their last 14 games.

Wang stellar in debut

Making his first appearance for the A’s after getting called up from Triple-A Las Vegas on Saturday, Wei-Chung Wang pitched well in relief of Montas. Wang took over in the fifth and kept the deficit at two runs with two scoreless innings before Olson’s game-tying two-run blast in the sixth.

It was Wang’s first MLB appearance since Sept. 27, 2017, when he was with the Brewers, and the left-hander looked sharp, just as he did in a limited Spring Training that was cut short due to injury. Wang relied heavily on his slider, which he threw on 16 of his 23 pitches, and he allowed only one hit over the two frames.

“It was similar to what we saw in Spring,” Melvin said. “Subtle movement and whether it’s the change, slider or fastball, he hides it a little bit. For a first look, to come into a situation like that for a new team was impressive to watch.”