By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND, Calif. — If you were taking a survey of the Athletics’ post-game comments from starting pitcher Brett Anderson. the word “frustrating” would beat the word “tough” by a two-to one margin.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
OAKLAND, Calif. –- There’s a reason they call him King Felix. “He can throw any pitch on any count,” said Bob Melvin. He’s the Oakland Athletics' manager. He was in the other dugout Monday night, opening night, a disappointing night for Melvin and the A’s.
A losing night.
“Opening night,” Melvin reminded, not that anyone needed reminding, “you’re always going to face the other team’s best pitcher.”
The Seattle Mariners’ best pitcher. One of baseball’s best pitchers. Felix Hernandez, who’s won an American League Cy Young Award, who last season threw a perfect game, who by anyone’s definition is pure baseball royalty.
“Maybe he didn’t have his best velocity,” said Melvin, a former catcher who knows all about pitching and too much about Hernandez, “but he was great.”
What Hernandez did was retire the first 10 batters of the game, really of the season, and although Hernandez would allow three hits – one to his former battery mate, John Jaso, whose double in the fourth was end of the no-hitter – the A’s never scored, losing 2-0.
An opening day and night without runs from teams by the Bay. Down in Los Angeles, the Giants – the World Series champion Giants, if you will – were blanked by the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw, 4-0. A few hours later, up at this end of the state, the A’s, the American League West Champions, were just as ineffective.
Two teams, two winning teams from 2012, zero runs.
“You always get somebody’s ace,” said Melvin.
The A’s similarly had one of their aces pitching, Brett Anderson. He struck out the first four Mariners. He went seven innings. Permitted only four hits and two runs.
“You’re going to take seven innings and two runs anytime from your starter,” Melvin insisted. Absolutely. But when your team gets no runs, you’re in trouble.
The A’s traded for Jaso in January. So long, Felix. “It’s easier catching him than batting against him,” said Jaso. But he did get that double. He did halt any chance for more perfection.
Before the game, Hernandez sent his former catcher a remembrance from the perfect game against Tampa Bay last August, a Rolex watch. Those beauties don’t come cheaply, starting a $5,000 or so and climbing exorbitantly depending on the number of diamonds on the face. Then again, Hernandez signed a $175-million, seven-year contract in January, so he has a bit of spare cash.
Someone asked Jaso whether it meant more getting a watch from Hernandez or a hit. “The hit,” he said, not all that seriously. “Then he struck me out.”
Hernandez struck out eight in his 7 2/3 innings, walking only one. “He had his stuff,” agreed Jaso. “He was really fun to catch when I was in Seattle. But today, so was Brett.”
Anderson is the medical miracle. The lefthander underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2011 and didn’t pitch again until last August. Then he strained an oblique muscle in September and missed more time. But on October 10, with the A’s trailing the Detroit Tigers two games to none in the best-of-five American League Division Series, Anderson, in his first start in six weeks, went six scoreless innings.
Monday night, opening night, was the next time Anderson pitched in competition. He liked the way he threw, for the most part. He didn’t like giving up the runs.
“A couple of mistakes,” said Anderson, analyzing the performance. “We had a chance to win it. I walked the leadoff batter (in the fifth). I hate walking people. That was my biggest downfall.”
The O.Co Coliseum was a wild place, a sellout – if with an asterisk, because the tarped rows of seats restrict attendance to 36,067 – the fans coming out with their rally towels and high hopes.
Where the A’s go from here – no jokes about San Jose – nobody is certain, but they won’t be going up against Hernandez at least for a few days, maybe a few weeks.
“We kept feeling we would pull it out,” said Melvin, the 2012 American League manager of the year. “In close games you have to have that feeling. We had it all last year, and it worked. A lot of times, one hit makes the difference.”
Hernandez wouldn’t let it work Monday night. The fans could chant “Let’s go Oakland.” The A’s couldn’t get that one hit. The A’s couldn’t get any runs.
“Felix is probably as good a pitcher as anyone as getting guys to swing at pitches,” said Melvin. He meant pitches at which they shouldn’t have swung. Pitches which they couldn’t hit.
At least when thrown by King Felix, as he threw them Monday night. So disappointing.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND – And so they’re back. Back in Oakland, back in the series. It could have been over for the Athletics, but somehow, you knew it wouldn’t be. The season that couldn’t be still is.
Because of the way Brett Anderson pitched. Because of the way Coco Crisp soared. Because of the way 37,090 fans screamed, shouted and reminded everyone how loud it can get in the once-silent Oakland Mausoleum.
A shutout for Anderson and the relievers, 2-0, over Detroit on Tuesday night. And as we’ve been taught, when the other team doesn’t score, you can’t lose. So after dropping the first two games of this best-of-five American League Division Series, after dropping six straight in the postseason to the Tigers, the A’s didn’t lose.
A remarkable catch by Crisp, who leaped high enough to reach over the centerfield fence some 400 feet from home plate to grab Prince Fielder’s apparent home run.
A rebirth by the A’s, who were one defeat from elimination and now, with a certain game Wednesday night and a possible fifth game Thursday, are a mere two games from moving on.
That’s the joy of baseball. One game changes everything. Back in Cincinnati, the Giants, awful at home, got one from the Reds, 2-1. Then a few hours later, the A’s followed suit. Gloom by the bay became glee by the bay.
“Well, they pitched and they played a perfect game,’’ said Jim Leyland, the Tigers manager, of the A’s. “Nothing you could do about it. (Anderson) had a good curveball and a very good breaking ball. I think Coco gave them a lot of momentum when he took the home run away . . . I think Coco’s catch really got them into it.”
A catch Anderson enjoyed immensely. “It was fun,’’ said the pitcher. “Not to give it up, but to watch it.”
Watching is what Anderson had done the past 20 days or so, since incurring a right oblique strain. Who knew what he might do when finally returning to the mound? Well, A’s manager Bob Melvin, a former catcher who had monitored Anderson during bullpen sessions, thought he knew. So did Anderson.
“We felt confident that he was simulating (games) enough to go out there and pitch accordingly in a game,’’ said Melvin. “I don’t know how you could expect more than we got out of him tonight.’’
What they got was six innings, 80 closely viewed pitches and, after he was about to be relieved having allowed only two hits and struck out six, an argument to be allowed to continue. Which Anderson lost.
“He wasn’t aware there was a pitch count,” said Melvin of Anderson. What most A’s fans were aware of is the fact that Anderson had Tommy John elbow surgery and missed 2011. The A’s were taking no extra chances.
“Earlier in the game,’’ Melvin agreed, “I don’t think he felt as good as he did later in the game. But 19, 20 days off, we weren’t looking for any more than that.”
Indeed, what they were looking for was the victory, and through a combination of fine defense – Yoenis Cespedes made a diving catch in the seventh almost the equal to Crisp’s grab in the second – and just enough offense, a run-scoring single by Cespedes in the first and a home run by Seth Smith in the fifth.
Through the three games of the series, the A’s have a cumulative batting average below the infamous Mendoza Line, .198, but they survive.
“The first inning was great,” said Melvin, “to be able to score a run and get the fans involved and get some excitement out there.”
Oakland doesn’t have a ballpark as impressive as San Francisco's, but it has hardcore fans. When they turn up, as they do in the playoffs, the noise is deafening. Imagine what it might be if those in charge took off the tarps that restrict stadium capacity to under 38,000.
“The atmosphere in Detroit,’’ said Leyland, “atmosphere in Oakland. If you look around all the teams have great atmospheres this time of year. (The A’s) played a perfect game. You tip your hat to them.”
The question is whether the A’s tipped the balance. So hot after sweeping Texas to win AL West, Oakland was ineffective in Detroit’s Comerica Park. Did the Anderson performance and the victory shift Old Mo, momentum?
“What (Tuesday night does) is gets us to tomorrow,” said Melvin. “We’ll go at in the same fashion as he did tonight. And we’ll go from there.”
They can’t do much else. Then again, the way Anderson pitched and Crisp stole a homer – “I thought I had a hit,’’ sighed Fielder – they didn’t have to do much else.
The season goes on.