A’s drop series opener to Angels

Coming off a week of .500 ball, the Oakland Athletics hoped to build on the ounce of momentum they mustered and get back being a kinda-sorta competitive club. Today, that ounce evaporated into a gram — apologies for the metric/imperial system crossover — as they lost quietly to a similarly beaten down franchise.

Right off the bat, the Angels jumped Luis Medina, taking advantage of his inconsistent command. After he hit the second batter of the game, Luis Rengifo, with a pitch, left fielder Taylor Ward took a big swing at a 97 mph sinker down the middle, sending it out to right field for a two-run shot.

Not long after, the A’s punched back as the recently recalled Tyler Nevin took a hanging curveball in the middle of the zone and sent it deep to center field for a solo shot, making it a 2-1 ballgame. The 27-year-old lit it up in Las Vegas but he’s a mere 3-for-19 without his usual high dose of walks since coming back to the big league club. He and newly crowned PCL Player of the Week Seth Brown might continue to get swapped back and forth for each other the rest of the year.

Unfortunately, that was the last we heard from the A’s lineup. Griffin Canning, Ben Joyce, and Hans Crouse combined to hold Oakland scoreless for the last 7 innings of the game as the offense tacked on 3 more insurance runs to close the game with a 5-1 score. All but one of those happened on Medina’s watch, who Mark Kotsay didn’t trust to come back out for the 4th inning. He instead went to swingman Aaron Brooks, who did an admirable job finishing the rest of the game with 5 innings of one-run ball and giving the bullpen a night off.

I can accept losing nine games in a row to teams that are clearly a tier above us, but losing a series to this Ohtani-less, Trout-less Angels team might be pill too tough to swallow. I can’t believe I’m saying this but... Mitch Spence, we need you.