The A\u2019s dropped the night contest against the Seattle Mariners on Thursday, blowing a late lead in front of an A\u2019s Spring Training record-breaking 10,876 crowd to secure the loss with one week exactly to go until Opening Day. Good thing these games still don\u2019t count quite yet, but dropping a game where we went with our starting lineup and our starting pitcher struck out 11 isn\u2019t a great sign.<\/p>\n
A\u2019s, Mariners trade early zeros<\/strong><\/p>\n Right-hander Aaron Civale was on the mound for the A\u2019s in what was his final tune-up start before the start of the regular season. The Mariners meanwhile countered with minor league acquisition Randy Dobnak, who is likely ticketed for Triple-A thanks to a stacked Seattle starting rotation.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Both righties traded zeros for the game\u2019s first three innings. The A\u2019s didn\u2019t manage anything against Dobnak during that time while Civale escaped a small jam in the second before striking out the side in the bottom of the third.<\/p>\n A\u2019s attack first<\/strong><\/p>\n Now going through the second time through the lineup the advantage shifted to the Athletics. Back-to-back doubles from Nick Kurtz and Shea Langeliers put the A\u2019s on the board to kick off the scoring and the A\u2019s weren\u2019t done there. An RBI knock off the bat of Brent Rooker brought in the second run of the frame for the Athletics and they scored their third thanks to a passed ball by the Seattle catcher. That would be all the damage the A\u2019s would do for the inning but that would be enough\u2026 for now.<\/p>\n The A\u2019s did have a slight scare in the fifth when left fielder Tyler Soderstrom was hit in the knee by a changeup during his at-bat, but it seems the A\u2019s dodged a major bullet just a week before camp breaks as he stayed in the game to run the bases (but was later pulled out on defense for Carlos Cortes).<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Seattle strikes back<\/strong><\/p>\n Civale, now given a bit of a lead to work with, retired the next six batters he faced, going on cruise control for the rest of his night. He\u2019d end his day after six full shutout frames and reaching 81 pitches. He also racked up an impressive 11 punchouts to go with zero free passes. By the looks of things from tonight, the righty looks ready and a full-go for the regular season. There\u2019s been some pessimism about Civale taking a spot away from someone young and exciting like Gage Jump, but could he surprise fans this coming year?<\/p>\n Time for the bullpen to hold things together for three more innings. Mark Kotsay decided to turn to another right-handed pitcher in JT Ginn. The righty began his camp with two scoreless appearances but had gotten knocked around in his previous two entering tonight. In this matchup against the Mariners it was the latter Ginn that we got.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Seattle was all over him from the start. He didn\u2019t do himself any favors plunking the first batter he faced but he was going to get lit up tonight anyway. Two outs, five hits, and another plunked batter later it was 6-3 Seattle. In the blink of an eye the 3-run lead had flipped and became a 3-run deficit. Ginn would not be able to finish the inning, getting chased by the back-breaking bases-clearing double off the bat of Cal Raleigh. Fellow righty Brooks Kriske mopped things up for Ginn and got the A\u2019s out of the frame.<\/p>\n The A\u2019s were now shell-shocked. And they weren\u2019t able to snap themselves out of it in time. They managed to push across a small-ball run in the bottom of the eighth but not much else. Elvis Alvarado and Jack Perkins did their job not letting the lead expand but it was too much for the lineup to overcome. The A\u2019s brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth but couldn\u2019t get the big hit to keep this game going as they dropped their 15th game of spring.<\/p>\n Well, not a great way to end an evening spring game but still some major positives to dwell on. Civale looked on fire out there and solidified his spot as the #3 in the rotation. Lawrence Butler went 1-for-2 with a walk as he continues his hurried prep for the season. Nick Kurtz and Shea Langeliers will give pitchers problems at the top of the batting order.<\/p>\n We do it all again tomorrow with another night cap, this time against the Chicago Cubs. They\u2019ll be set to send right-handed vet Jameson Taillon to the bump for them in what\u2019ll be his final tune up before camp breaks. Meanwhile the A\u2019s have yet to announce who they\u2019ll send to start tomorrow\u2019s game. Any guesses?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The A\u2019s dropped the night contest against the Seattle Mariners on Thursday, blowing a late lead in front…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":668342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[19406,34538,218063,4711,261673,1271,261671,5439,2184,282382,65147,1285,1266,617,61551,282383,1288,75855,62,7950,75858,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-668341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-aaron-civale","tag-brent-rooker","tag-brooks-kriske","tag-cal-raleigh","tag-carlos-cortes","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-elvis-alvarado","tag-jameson-taillon","tag-las-vegas","tag-las-vegas-ballpark","tag-lawrence-butler","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-mlb","tag-nevada","tag-nick-kurtz","tag-randy-dobnak","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-shea-langeliers","tag-sports","tag-the-athletics","tag-tyler-soderstrom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116259591679025320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}