Game # 140: A’s drop another to White Sox, fall 10-2

Oakland dropped their fifth straight game on Saturday afternoon, losing to the Chicago White Sox by a final of 10-2.

The A’s got another short start from a rookie starting pitcher while the bats went quiet yet again, collecting just three hits and a walk to go with their two runs against 20 hits and 10 runs. Sigh.

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Chicago struck first against A’s starter Adrian Martinez. Following a shaky opening frame, Martinez allowed a double, steal, and RBI single for the game’s first run. Another single put two on for former A’s shortstop Elvis Andrus, who of course crushed a 3-run bomb against his former club. Very quickly it was a 4-run deficit.

It’s hard to imagine, but the inning went from bad to worse from there. Another couple singles preceded Martinez getting drilled by a comebacker, hitting him in his left shoulder and putting him on the ground momentarily and in some pain.

Kemp made the play to end the inning, though, and Martinez not only walked off under his own power, but he also came back out for the third inning. It would have put a huge tax on the bullpen to have two out of their last three starters only make it through two innings.

He didn’t make it through four however, allowing three more runs in the fourth before Mark Kotsay had seen enough. Martinez was pulled with two outs, with Kirby Snead replacing him.

-Adrian Martinez: 3 ²⁄₃ IP, 14 hits, 7 R, 1 BB, 2 K, 93 pitches

After three straight solid starts Martinez has arguably his worst outing of his short career. He was getting knocked around earl, often, and hard today as he just didn’t have anything in his repertoire working for him. It seemed Kotsay wanted to squeeze one more inning out of him and it just didn’t work out this time.

The offense, meanwhile, couldn’t get much going against Chicago starter Lance Lynn, collecting just one hit through the first three innings.

They had a great chance to get back into this game when they loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth against Lynn but only managed to push across a single run thanks for a Stephen Vogt sac fly. Shea Langeliers, behind the plate for todays game, struck out to end the threat.

They got some help on their second run when Chicago threw away a Vogt possible double play ground ball that allowed Ramon Laureano to score all the way from first. That was it for the offense after that.

The bullpen was up and down after Martinez, with Snead pitching two scoreless innings (but allowing an inherited run to score), and Sam Moll got the only out he was asked to get. Domingo Tapia had a rough outing, walking his first three hitters and allowing a 2-run single after getting the first two outs, then allowed another run in his second inning of work before Norge Ruiz finished off the eighth and then the ninth inning.

The squad is scuffling hard right now but they’ll have a chance to avoid the dreaded four-game sweep tomorrow afternoon. They’ll be throwing their best arm at the White Sox in Cole Irvin, who has been stellar at the Coliseum all year.