Game #59: Déjà vu on offense, A's Lose 4-0

The highlight of today was the Bratwurst edging out the Chorizo in the sausage race. There really wasn't much else worth watching as an A's fan. Here's a summary so you can be spared having to watch this game.

Offense, or Lack Thereof

The A's got their first hit (of 3) in the 6th inning.

The first couple of innings featured multiple line drives right to a glove and multiple called strike threes that were borderline at best.

Coghlan continues to look utterly, utterly lost at the plate. He is apparently only the 4th worst hitter of the Beane era going into today (by wRC+), but he continues to make a strong case for himself being #1 or #2.

The A’s got their first baserunner of the day in the 4th, when Chris Carter made an error to allow Coco to reach base. A Burns flyout (on a 3-1 count, Burns has no time for walks) and two pop-ups ended the inning, with Oakland still having 0 hits.

Smolinski finally got the A’s’ first hit of the day in the 6th inning on a weak groundball against the shift. Of course, the baserunner was immediately removed on a Crisp double play.

Lowrie got a hit in the 7th but ultimately the A’s could do nothing with it.

Villar flashed some fancy defense for a couple outs in the 8th. Semien got two meatballs but couldn’t do anything with either one.

Burns doubled in the 9th but it was too late.

Jesse Hahn, Oof

Jesse Hahn started Villar off with 6 straight fastballs, who of course was able to time the pitch and hit a single. Villar quickly stole second and then Gennett, on his 7th straight fastball, singled him home to make the score 1-0 Brewers. A double play prevented further damage, but Jesse Hahn had thrown 20 pitches in the first inning and 19 were fastballs (pitch #20 was the only curveball of the inning and it was a groundout).

In the 2nd inning, Pasta Lowrie gave Chris Carter a single on a glacially slow groundball and then Nieuwenenhuis singled to put two runners on. Hahn inexplicably threw a fastball up in the zone to Ramon Flores because hey, who needs ground balls. Coco made a great catch (after running a terrible route) to turn Flores’s almost-double into a sacrifice fly. And then Hahn gave up a single to the pitcher, and then a single to Villar to load the bases on a close play that was originally ruled an out before being overturned on review. The Villar single is on Semien, who chose not to step on second base (he was right there) and then double clutched badly on the throw to first. Hahn got another out to limit the damage to 2-0 Brewers, but he had also thrown nearly 50 pitches in 2 innings.

Hahn finally had an efficient third inning, needing only 8 pitches and getting his first only strikeout of the day.

But then we got more bad Hahn in the 4th - a single and two walks (one semi-intentional) to load the bases, then a bloop single with 2 outs to make the score 4-0. They yanked Hahn at 74 pitches before he could finish the 4th inning.

At least we have a bullpen

Fortunately Dull came in and maintained his perfect streak of stranding inherited runners (24/24) by striking out Ryan Braun. It feels like this team is rapidly destroying Ryan Dull by trying to put him into a long relief-type role, but fortunately he has remained fantastic despite pitching over 30 innings already this year.

Dull pitched a quick, clean 5th inning, striking out Carter on the off-speed pitch in the dirt that Vogt and Manaea seemed to forget existed yesterday.

Coulombe gave up a single in the 6th but otherwise pitched well, notching a couple of strikeouts and showing good life on both his curveball and fastball.

Coulombe got one out in the 7th before Melvin pulled him in favor of Axford, who got the remaining 2 outs without issue. It’s good to see Axford get some easy outs after a very shaky month of May.

Rzepczynski looked good in the 8th.

Positives?

I don't want this recap to be too relentlessly depressing, so here are several good things to take away from this stinker of a game:

• Billy Butler put some good at-bats together today with a couple of hard-hit balls after going deep into the count. Nothing to show for it, but the process was there.
• This was only our second shutout of the season.
• That's it, no more good things.

Sorry y'all, the past couple weeks have seemingly made me into Lot's wife because I'm just a pillar of salt. The A's have the day off tomorrow and then go to Cincinnati on Friday.