A’s comeback rally falls short in 12-9 loss

Despite a heroic effort, disastrous start is just too much to overcome for the A’s

Coming off of the best start in the career of Joey Estes, today was a complete 180.

The rookie righty allowed just five hits and no runs en route to a complete-game shutout last Wednesday against the Los Angeles Angels, but within just an inning of tonight's game in Boston he’d already surpassed both of those totals. And it really wasn’t close either.

The A’s lost 12-9 in a game that was over early despite an honorable comeback late. One lob-sided inning that led to ³⁄₄ of the Red Sox runs turned a decent night at the ballpark for the green and gold into a loss they’ll soon want to forget.

Out of the gate, however, the A’s would waste no time getting their hacks in against Red Sox starter Brayan Bello.

With one out in the first, a Miguel Andujar single followed by a Brent Rooker two-bagger put the A’s on the board. Two batters later it was Shea Langeliers turn as the backstop swatted an RBI single to center to put the A’s up 2-0.

That two-run lead would’ve been more than enough for Estes last week but not tonight.

The Red Sox first four batters of the game all reached via a pair of singles and a pair of doubles to immediately put them back ahead, 3-2. In the second, all hell broke loose.

A walk, Ceddanne Rafaela triple and Jarren Duran sac fly made the score 5-2. Estes then plunked Tyler O’Neill with a pitch, surrendered a double to Rafael Devers and single to Connor Wong to end his day. He finished the evening throwing 1.2 innings allowing seven hits, and eight runs. Ouch.

Tyler Ferguson replaced Estes and faced a similar fate at least immediately.

Masataka Yoshida greeted him with an RBI single to grow the lead to 7-2. With a pair on base, Wilyer Abreu provided the crushing blow of the inning with a three-run blast to center field. The next batter, Smith, put the cherry on top with a solo shot to make it back-to-back and stretch the lead to 11-2.

The Red Sox sent 11 batters to the plate in the second and recorded six hits — four of them extra base hits and two of those home runs. It’s all the runs they’d need for the rest of the game despite a solid effort from a few guys in the A’s pen.

For example, Ferguson buckled down after a rough first few batters to give 2.1 innings of much needed work. Michel Otanez’ return to the bullpen saw him strike out 4/5 outs he induced while allowing no runs despite walking three. Then Scott Alexander had a solid outing as well working a scoreless 1.1 frames. Altogether, the A’s pen allowed just three total hits for the last seven innings after the brutal start.

Unfortunately for them, todays mountain was just too high to climb for the A’s offense when it was all said and done.

Lawrence Butler bit into the 11-2 deficit with a sixth inning no-doubt three-run bomb to right center field. Zack Gelof made it 11-6 the next inning with a sacrifice fly.

Abreu got the run back for the Red Sox with a sacrifice fly of his own in the eighth, and Gelof would strike again in the ninth to make the final box score a little more interesting with another three-run bomb for the A’s.

It’s easy to take some negatives from this game especially early, but the no-quit effort amongst the offense and bullpen is certainly worth noting. The A’s had as many hits as the Red Sox with 13 in the end but they just couldn’t escape the big inning.

The A’s fall to 0-4 on the season against Boston but they’ll have a pair of chances to flip that around these next couple of days. Game two of the three game stand is tomorrow at 4:10 PM PDT with JP Sears taking the ball against Nick Pivetta of the Red Sox.