Athletics drop finale against Giants, wrap rivalry with 4-2 loss

End of an era

The Oakland Athletics dropped their final game to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday afternoon, falling in extras by a final of 4-2 on a sunny day in front of a packed Coliseum. So ends the Oakland-San Francisco baseball rivalry.

Another pitching duel

Last night saw both starters throw up four scoreless frames apiece to open the game up, and today was a lot of the same as lefties JP Sears and Blake Snell traded zeros in today’s contest. Through five frames neither pitcher budged, with Sears helping himself out with a nifty play in the fourth to double off a runner at first:

In front of basically the biggest home crowd of the season, Sears was clearly pumped up for this one. There have been some bumps for him in Year 2 but today he brought his A-game and gave it all for the club. You could tell he brought something extra to today’s game.

Breakthrough

Having just tossed a no-hitter a couple of starts ago, it was fair to say that Giants starter Blake Snell was locked in heading into today’s contest. That’s more or less what it looked like over the game’s first few innings as Oakland batters struck out left and right while managing just a couple two-out singles against the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner. The offense looked lost but in a pitching duel like today, it wouldn’t take much.

Heading into the sixth inning Snell seemed to be finally wearing down. Outfielder Daz Cameron worked a full count before collecting his first hit of the day (and only Oakland’s third). Snubbed All-Star Brent Rooker followed suit with his own single to put the first Oakland baserunner in scoring position. A force out made it runners on the corners with two outs so anything other than a single wouldn’t do. Enter Miguel Andújar:

We got a lead. You hate to think about what Andújar’s stats would look like this year if he hadn’t missed so much time at the start of the season but he’s one of the club’s best hitters right now.

Can we hold on?

Finally given a lead after six awesome innings, Sears marched out there for the seventh. What felt like the right decision turned out to bite the squad as Sears’ third pitch of the seventh inning was launched over the center field fence for a game-tying home run off the bat of All-Star Heliot Ramos, with Sears knowing right off the bat that he’d missed his spot. All knotted up again.

Still, with a relatively low pitch count Sears persisted on, getting the next three outs willy nilly and continuing an otherwise fantastic day on the mound. The lefty would get two more outs in the eighth inning before a two-out double would prompt a pitching change. His day was done after 105 pitches and almost eight full frames. What a start JP! His ERA is now at a respectable 4.15 mark, much improved considering it was at an even 5.00 entering July.

Blown chance

Speaking of the pitching change, it wasn’t manager Mark Kotsay who made the move. The frame before saw the A’s load the bases against Snell with just one out. Snell was clearly losing it as he had just walked two batters in addition to a wild pitch. Max Shuemann struck out to bring up Cameron again for a chance at a game-changing hit and he worked his count well. Facing a 3-1 count it looked like he’d worked the walk and forced in a run but a tough call from the umpire brought Cameron back to the plate, where two pitches later he instead grounded out. You be the judge:

If I were Kotsay I would be frustrated too. He would argue and get ejected, ending his day as manager and sending him into the clubhouse.

Here come extras

Tyler Ferguson wrapped up the eighth for Sears and All-Star Mason Miller handled a perfect ninth with a couple strikeouts. The Giants’ bullpen was equally effective as they held down the A’s bats in the eighth and ninth to send this one to extras. Free baseball!

Except things unraveled quickly for the home team. The recently reinstated Dany Jiménez took over for the start of the tenth with the customary runner at second base to start the inning. And on his very first pitch back from the IL he served up a ball right in the wheel house for Giants rookie Jerar Encarnacion, who deposited that pitch over the right-center field wall for a 2-run shot to give the Giants the lead. To make matters worse his fourth pitch to the next batter, Michael Conforto, also ended up leaving the yard, this time a solo shot to right to give San Francisco a seemingly insurmountable 3-run lead.

The Athletics fought hard in the bottom of the frame, bringing in their own ghost runner from second thanks to a Giants’ error. They’d even load the bases against the Giants’ apparent new closer Ryan Walker, who was into his second inning of work already. The tying run on second base and the winning run at first, Shea Langeliers stepped to the plate but flailed at strike three, ending this contest and ending this rivalry.

Oh well. A split is a split. In a way fitting, considering how closely these two teams have been in the win column for years on end. The A’s ultimately won the direct rivalry, going 76-72 against the cross-bay rivals. That number will seemingly be etched in stone now. Sigh.

It’s hard to fathom that this was the last one. The energy at the Coliseum over these past two days has been phenomenal. There will be no recreating this magic anywhere else, and it’s a shame this rivalry is ending like this.

The Athletics get back to it tomorrow evening as they welcome the Tampa Bay Rays for a 4-game series at the Coliseum. It’ll be rookie Joe Boyle against Rays prized arm Taj Bradley. See you then!