OAKLAND, Calif. — Adolis Garcia saw, swung at, and promptly blasted the first ball he saw far above the Coliseum’s left field fence.
Oakland starter Paul Blackburn’s rude welcome back from his first All-Star appearance saw him give up that titanic two-run blast alongside a RBI double in the first inning of the A’s wild 11-8 loss to the Texas Rangers. Things didn’t get much better for Blackburn in what ended up being one of the most unusual games of the season.
If Texas’ first inning was all about power, their third inning displayed their ability to play so-called ‘small ball.’ Garcia smacked a single through a crack in the defense, and then he stole second. That gave him an opportunity to race home on a Leody Taveras single. Taveras followed up with a steal of his own, but couldn’t advance any further once Blackburn induced a flyout to left fielder Chad Pinder.
The Rangers appeared to be poised for another big inning in the fourth when former A’s star Marcus Semien doubled off Sheldon Neuse’s glove at third. Corey Seager and his 22 home runs were to be followed up by Nathaniel Lowe, Jonah Heim, and Garcia. But Blackburn got himself out of the two-out dilemma when he picked off Semien, who had strayed a bit too far off the bag to recover. A review upheld a call vociferously protested by Texas’ $175 million man.
Seager had to walk back to the dugout for only a few minutes, because Oakland’s anemic offense quickly burned through all three of their allotted outs. When he got his second opportunity of an at-bat against Blackburn, he mauled a 91 MPH four-seam fastball into the deepest part of center field and over Ramón Laureano’s outstretched glove. And as a popular Smashmouth song goes, the hits didn’t stop coming for Texas.
Jonah Heim hit a double, Garcia walked, Taveras singled, Kole Calhoun also got on base, and all four eventually scored during an inning where the A’s just could not get an out.
By the time Oakland manager Mark Kotsay mercifully pulled him from the game, Blackburn’s line read eight earned runs allowed on 10 hits.
In came David McKay, who happened to be making his A’s debut while pitching for his sixth professional club in 2022. The right hander gave up a couple more hits and pushed Blackburn’s earned run tally to 10 before he finally got out of an inning in which the Rangers batted around.
Oakland’s bats had been serviceable for the last ten games, batting a respectable .241 with 48 runs scored over that span. This uptick in offense had coincided with Laureano’s hot streak, in which he had hit eight home runs in the last 20 games. For the majority of the game, Sunday’s A’s looked more like the unit that had preceded this offensive uptick though, and they couldn’t manage more than a walk here or a single there for most of the afternoon.
And then out of nowhere, the A’s slapped relief pitcher Garrett Richards around in the eighth inning. Stephen Piscotty’s homer headlined a four-run inning that could’ve ended up even more disastrous for the Rangers had third baseman Josh Smith not made an outstanding over-the-shoulder grab in shallow left to end the inning. Sean Murphy hit his 11th home run of the season in the top of the ninth to make the score closer, and then Pinder slammed another home run to inch the A’s even closer.
Then came Tony Kemp, who went over the right field wall for Oakland’s third home run in as many at-bats. It was the first time the A’s had hit back-to-back home runs since 2006 against the Rangers.
Texas lit up the scoreboard to the tune of 16 total hits with two home runs and three doubles among them. Meanwhile, the A’s totaled 12 hits, six of those for extra-bases with most of those coming after the game was thought to be a rout.
Oakland’s hitters looked like completely different men than the ones who had looked so lost for much of the game against starter Martín Pérez. It seemed as if every A’s hitter was guaranteed to pound the ball in the late stages of the game.
The A’s will have to face a slew of hitters capable of those kinds of big nights on Monday. The division-leading Houston Astros will waltz into the East Bay riding a five-game win streak.
