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Tonight's game started out swimmingly for the A's, as they staked Sonny Gray to a 1-0 lead, thanks to Stephen Vogt's 5th home run of the year. In fact, the game started out so well for Sonny Gray that he didn't allow his first hit until the sixth inning. He walked a batter in the fourth, but other than that, he was perfect through five.
Meanwhile, the A's had runners all over the bases in nearly every inning, but aside from a home run from Vogt after a double-play erased the runner in front of him, making it a solo, the A's couldn't score a single one of them.
Of course, the 2016 A's are gonna A, and they flat-out TOOTBLAN'd away the second run of the game in their half of the sixth inning with a circus on the bases. Seriously, add a clown, some bright colors and put a tent on it. Khris Davis walked to open the inning and after a wild pitch moved him to second, Yonder Alonso smacked a line drive way out to right field off the wall, moving Khris Davis to third easily. Yonder should have either hustled his little bustle at top speed into second, or stopped at first, but instead, he was caught in no-man's-land and was thrown out at second for the first out. The A's could have still scored, but Davis was clearly running on contact as Marcus Semien hit a ground ball to third, and Davis was easily thrown out at home. Semien then stole second base (and part of me was hoping he'd be thrown out, just to complete the absurdness of the inning), but he was successful, the Reds walked Max Muncy to face Sonny Gray, who struck out to end the inning. He also grounded out and had a successful sacrifice bunt on the day.
Knowing a 1-0 lead is too good to be true with this crew, the Reds made their move in the seventh. A one-out single, a wild pitch, and a two-out double off Sonny Gray tied the game at one. Another single put runners on first and third with still two outs, and of all things, a wild pitch cost the A's the game.
They didn't score again, and they drop this game 2-1, en route to their sixth loss in a row. Something fun for tomorrow; A's prospect Daniel Mengden is making his major league debut tomorrow at 1:10PM.
