A’s offense goes cold in 3-1 loss
A’s combine for 14 strikeouts offensively while JP Sears and other arms dazzle
After Wednesday's A’s game against the San Diego Padres resulted in 23 total runs and 30 total hits in a losing effort, Thursday's game against the Chicago Cubs was a complete 180. The A’s would score just one run while recording no extra-base hits in a day where pitchers led the way and the A’s dropped their second in a row, 3-1.
Pitchers Duel
JP Sears got the rock for the A’s to mark the fourth appearance of his impressive Spring, and he had glimpses of that continued brilliance on Thursday.
After allowing a single and RBI double to Seiya Sukuzi right out of the gate to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead, Sears settled down to retire the next nine straight batters quite convincingly.
Equally as impressive, however, was Japanese lefty Shota Imanaga, one of the Cubs' big free-agent signings this offseason. Imanaga had A’s hitters guessing all afternoon throwing 4.1 innings while allowing just three singles and striking out nine. He struck out 8/9 A’s hitters including Zack Gelof twice on six total pitches.
In the fourth inning, Sears found himself in trouble. After loading the bases on two singles and a hit batter with just one out, Sears limited the damage to just one run getting both Mike Tauchman and Yan Gomes to flyout. The pregame plan for Sears on Thursday was to throw around 70 pitches; he wound up throwing exactly 70 through five innings of work surrendering two runs off five hits and striking out three.
Head coach Mark Kotsay would remove his starters in the middle of the sixth inning after Cubs reliever Yency Almonte worked an impressive top half of the inning. The A’s starters struck out 11/18 outs while knocking just three hits - all singles.
A’s find life in the 7th
After reliever Dany Jimenez worked a brisk scoreless next half inning while striking out two, the A’s finally got on board in the 7th thanks to a lead-off walk by Brent Rooker. Rooker would advance to second on a wild pitch and then score off an Armando Alvarez rocket RBI single to center to cut the lead in half at 2-1. Alvarez has had a fantastic Spring himself hitting .476 across 21 at-bats.
The A’s would load the bases with two outs later in the inning thanks to a pair of walks from Cubs deliver Carl Edwards Jr., but Jack Winkler flew out to cut the rally at just one.
The Cubs got that insurance run right back in the next inning with a one-out David Bote big fly off Sean Newcomb. The home run would spoil what was otherwise a pretty strong outing for Newcomb who struck out three in 1.2 innings of work.
With the deficit now at two, the A’s offense didn’t have enough firepower to muster up any kind of significant late rally Thursday. Cubs reliever Edwin Escobar faced the minimum in the bottom of the ninth to close out the 3-1 victory and send the A’s to 10-10 in the Cactus League.
With just six hits — all singles — the A’s will look to quickly erase today's dry effort at the plate and hope for better results tomorrow against the San Francisco Giants in the MLB’s first-ever Spring Breakout game. The first pitch is at 1:05 p.m. PDT in Mesa, AZ.