Game Thread #33: A’s at Boston

A’s hoping to turn around woeful road trip with a win in the morning finale against the BoSox

The A’s (14-18) face off against the Boston Red Sox this morning at Fenway Park in search of their first win of the road trip. After suffering a sweep, north of the border in Canada against the Blue Jays over the weekend, Oakland came into Boston hoping to awaken their bats with the “Green Monster” sitting just 310 feet away down the left field line. Unfortunately in the first two games of the series, the A’s have been limited to five runs on 11 hits and only a Robbie Grossman solo home run to right to their credit.
The entire offense has really been struggling over the last week...

Last 7 Games: A’s Batting Averages (Lost last 5 games)
1 Hundley: .400
2 Semien: .333
3 Laureano: .250
3 Phegley: .250
5 Grossman: .182
6 Chapman: .160
7 Pinder: .158
8 Profar: .154
9 Piscotty: .130
10. Davis: .125
11 Morales: .067
12 Canha: .000

Today’s Starters: RHP Mike Fiers (2-2, 7.03 ERA) at RHP Hector Velazquez (0-2, 3.86 ERA) Fiers is looking to build off his last start (7 innings, 6 hits, 2 runs, 5 strikeouts). In a April 3rd start against the Red Sox in Oakland, Fiers threw six shutout innings, in a game the A’s would win 1-0. The A’s need a big game from the opening night starter today as they look to turn around this nightmare road trip.

Red Sox starter, Valazquez, is from Sonora, Mexico (the home state of fellow countryman, Fernando Valenzuela). Like the A’s Frankie Montas, Valazquez mixes in a split fingered fastball (throwing it 30.4% of the time in 2019) to go along with his four seamed fastball (throwing it 54.8% of the time in 2019) and hard slider (throwing it 13.3% of the time in 2019). Valazquez made headlines in the U.S. and in Mexico last month when he announced that he wouldn’t be attending the Red Sox trip to the White House next week (May 9th) to celebrate their 2018 World Series Championship.

Jurickson Profar remains on the benched today as Bob Melvin gives him time to work out his throwing mechanics. Without the second basemen, the A’s are down to a limited bench for today’s matinee contest. Anyone else questioning Forst/Beane/BoMel on the current roster configuration of a 2 man bench and a 9 man relief staff? I don’t get it...

Anyways, Here are today’s line-ups:
A’s at Red Sox (10:05am PST; 52 F at Game Time with a chance of showers at 1:00pm PST)

Help on the Way?
MLB’s William Boor has a good note on A’s top prospect, Jorge Mateo...
“Mateo has been red-hot all year (at Triple AAA - Las Vegas) and that trend continued with another multihit effort, his 12th (out of 23 games) this season. Mateo, who is batting .352 and has reached base in all 23 games this season, looks to be on the verge of a huge bounceback campaign. The 23-year-old, whom the A’s acquired from the Yankees in 2016, hit .230 over 131 games in Triple-A last year.

Susan Slusser, the excellent beat writer for the SF Chronicle, wrote yesterday that A’s reliever Lou Trivino would be good to go for today:

I will just leave this right here:

So break out the the Cocoa Puffs Kashi cereal this morning, take an early lunch from work and tune into AM A’s baseball from the East Coast..

Let’s Go Oak-Land!!!!