Spring Game #21: A’s Drop Game to Royals 4-2

Good afternoon and welcome to a rainy day at Hohokam Stadium with an attendance number of 5,211. Despite threats of rain, the game was played in its entirety today; the A’s dropping the game to the Royals 4-2. The A’s were slopping on defense, making three error in total. Their offense did rack-up 10 hits, but they couldn’t make them count.

*** Click here to revisit today’s Game Thread! ***

For those of you on the Franklin Barreto train, he went 0-3 today, as did Khris Davis (with 3 K’s). The announcers’ nightmare duo of Deichmann and Diekman were both on display; the former recording a hit in his four at-bats and the latter pitching a perfect scoreless inning with two K’s.

Mike Fiers pitched five innings; nothing really to write home about, allowing five hits and two earned runs, walking one. He gave up a lead off home run to open the game and thanks to a throwing error by Barreto, allowed a second run in the first to put the A’s behind 2-0 before they picked up the bats.

With one out in the first inning, the Matts both singled to put runners on the corners for ultimately Mark Canha, who doubled Olson in to cut the deficit to 2-1. But the Royals came right back; a walk, stolen base and a single plated their third run, all against Fiers.

The A’s scored one more run on the day; in the bottom of the fourth, Robbie Grossman singled, took second on a throwing error, and scored on a single by Austin Allen to cut the lead again to one run; 3-2. Fiers finished his five innings and was replaced by Diekman, who was perfect.

After someone named Richard Lovelady struck out Olson, Davis and Canha in quick succession to end the sixth, Burch Smith replaced Diekman for the seventh, and was just as perfect. Austin Allen singled again for the A’s in their half, as did Deichmann, but the A’s couldn’t push across the tying run.

Meanwhile, it was Lou Trivino for the eighth, and he ran into trouble in the inning, got no defensive help, and ended up giving up the Royals 4th run before turning it over to T.J. McFarland in the ninth, who was perfect with two strikeouts.

The A’s mounted a comeback in the ninth, with a two-out single by Ronnie Freeman and a walk to Ryan Goins to bring the winning run to the plate, but Deichmann struck out to end the game.

The A’s will be back at home on Friday night and with any luck, I’ll be there in person! We continue our uncertain march to the start of the season; in a world that really needs baseball right now.

We’ll see you back here tomorrow with all the action as the A’s visit the Angels at 1:10PM.