WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The result of this afternoon’s game had a heftier weight on the pendulum.
If victorious, the Orioles would head back to the East Coast winners of two straight series out west and five of six games overall. Couple that with a sweep of the White Sox, and that’s eight of nine. With Jordan Westburg and Cedric Mullins potentially joining a team on a scorching hot streak, everything would be coming up Birds.
An impressive sweep of the Mariners bookended by taking care of business against the White Sox and Athletics.
A 5-1 loss, however, felt monumentally different.
Entering a fresh series against the Orioles, the Athletics had lost 20 of their previous 22 games. Their rough stretch indicated the possibility that Baltimore could continue to gain some ground in the standings.
That’s not what happened this weekend, and the O’s are still in search of some answers.
Once again, they didn’t find many in the first few innings of play.
On Friday night, seven runs were scored in the first three frames. Last night, there were five runs after the first. In this afternoon’s contest, the O’s and A’s matched that five run benchmark in two innings instead of one.
It was the same 4-1 Athletics advantage.
Singles and small ball got the A’s in the run column in the bottom of the first. And in the second, they added on more, thanks in large part to some poor Baltimore defense.
Jhonny Pereda’s RBI double put the Athletics in front 2-1, but they weren’t done there. Denzel Clarke pushed him to third thanks to an Emmanuel Rivera error (later changed to a hit) at first base, and Pereda later scored on an error from shortstop Gunnar Henderson. Jacob Wilson singled, as he’s known to do, and just like that it was 4-1, the same deficit that the O’s faced in the first inning of last night’s game.
Tomoyuki Sugano fits into the pitch-to-contact archetype. He won’t overwhelm hitters with velocity, but is able to locate well and induce weak contact and outs. That’s difficult to do effectively when the defense doesn’t help you out, but there was plenty of hard contact mixed in there, too.
Sugano settled in after a rough first two innings, but his outing was short-lived. Just over four innings of work was his shortest start of the season outside of his MLB debut, a game in which he left early due to cramping. Eight hits matched a career high, as did four runs, although only three were earned.
On the other side of the ball, the Orioles’ struggles against left-handed pitching reared their ugly head yet again. A’s starter Jacob Lopez, who entered the contest with an ERA of 7.20, lowered that figure to 6.00 after four innings without an earned run. Sean Newcomb, another lefty, entered with his earned run figure just North of 4.00, and left with it at 3.78.
There were, at least, a few positives to take away.
Coby Mayo put together one of the best at-bats of his young career in the top of the fourth inning. A nine-pitch at-bat with four fall balls resulted in a 103.5 mph single up the middle. He followed it up with a steal of second, his first stolen bag in the majors. The O’s couldn’t bring him home, however.
Adley Rutschman had a nice day at the dish, too. His second hit of the game put him on base all three times to start the contest. It also improved his line to .435/.500/.739 in the month of June, good for a 1.239 OPS with two home runs and just three strikeouts.
The bullpen had an incredibly strong showing yet again, but unlike last night, the offense didn’t match their prowess.
Mason Miller entered the game in the top of the ninth, and that was all she wrote. The offense did string together eight hits, but there were very few true threats.
Now, a huge test awaits in the form of Detroit and their MLB-leading 43 wins. A couple of key position players returning to the lineup would certainly help matters.