Game #54: Angels return favor by shutting out A’s

On Thursday, the Oakland A’s opened their series against the Los Angeles Angels by tossing a shutout. Two days later, the Halos returned the favor.

The A’s fell to the Angels 4-0 on Saturday afternoon at the Coliseum, collecting only three hits along the way.

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In total, Alex Cobb and a pair of relievers limited Oakland to just five baserunners, between three singles and two walks. Making it even worse, three of them were eliminated in double plays, in consecutive innings from the 3rd through 5th. Beginning with that last GIDP, the A’s final 14 batters were retired in order. In total, they hit the ball hard four times.

Meanwhile, Frankie Montas matched those zeroes for four innings but gave up an unearned crooked number in the 5th. With runners on the corners and one out, Matt Olson fielded a grounder and flipped home in plenty of time for an out at the plate, but catcher Aramis Garcia couldn’t squeeze the ball and it clanked off his glove for an error. The next batter flew out, which would have ended the inning if the previous play at the plate had been completed, but instead it was only the second out of the frame.

From there, sharp singles by Shohei Ohtani and Anthony Rendon piled three more runs on the scoreboard. Just as the A’s had done on Thursday in Chris Bassitt’s shutout, the Angels collected all of their runs in that one inning.

• Montas: 5⅔ ip, 4 runs (0 earned), 7 Ks, 1 BB, 6 hits, 98 pitches, 86.9 mph EV

Oakland’s bullpen held up the rest of the way, mostly behind former Angels relievers Cam Bedrosian and Deolis Guerra, but the lineup wasn’t able to scrap together any kind of comeback.

On the bright side, here’s a great defensive play by Mark Canha! The A’s outfield has been making all kinds of amazing catches lately.

Nothing much else to say about this game. Cobb has generally given the A’s problems in the past, and Montas gave up some hard contact but didn’t pitch badly and didn’t actually allow any earned runs. Shake it off, go get ‘em tomorrow, and win the series.