For A’s, ‘just another game’ is a special one

OAKLAND — Just another game. That’s what the A’s implied, if they didn’t say it specifically.

Just another game, when they’ve opened the season with an historical losing streak.

Just another game, when the media is emphasizing everything that’s negative while ignoring anything that’s positive.

Nobody’s panicking. Or so they told us. What we told them was the Oakland A’s never had started a year as poorly as they started this one, going way back to the beginning of the 20th century, dropping each of their first six.

This is baseball, someone said. Even the best team, the World Series champion, loses 50 games, maybe 60. Things go wrong. Then they go well.

They finally went well for the A’s on Wednesday, Oakland coming back first to tie the Los Angeles Dodgers and then beat L.A., 4-3, in 10 innings on Mitch Moreland’s hit that brought home Mark Canha.

Sure, the A’s dugout emptied, teammates racing to surround Moreland between first and second, and that 1980s hit “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang, a theme song from the winning past, boomed from the loudspeakers. But that was about it.  

Ballplayers, managers, look at the big picture. Once I confronted Tom Lasorda, when the Dodgers lost their first two games on the schedule, and he was almost indignant.

“Didn’t you think we were going to lose two games this year?” was Lasorda’s rhetorical response. Of course, but not before you hadn’t won any. And who thought the A’s, a playoff team last season, would lose six before they won any?

“Obviously, we’ve been needing that one,” agreed Moreland, “kind of waiting on it.” Obviously.

And it wasn’t just how many the A’s lost, it was how.

First came the Houston Astros, with one rout after another, and all at the Coliseum, where before 8,131 fans Oakland got its victory.

During the seven games, the A’s were outscored 44-17.

That they got a split in the last two is amazing in a way, facing Cy Young Award winners back to back, Clayton Kershaw on Tuesday and new Dodger Trevor Bauer on Wednesday. Bauer couldn’t hold a two-run lead.

A’s manager Bob Melvin seemed somewhat unemotional about ending the losing streak that was beginning the 2021 season, pointing out he was relieved. You’d have thought his choice of words would more likely have been ecstatic.

But you know the oft-repeated advice: Don’t get too high when you win or too low when you lose. Apparently that holds even when you’re getting pounded.

What impressed Melvin was the way A’s starter Jesus Luzardo made it through a first inning when he threw 35 pitches and only gave up one run.

“You never want to go through a six-game losing streak, but to start the season it’s tough,” said Melvin. “Jesús, after having to deal with what he did in the first inning, to get us as far as he did was fantastic. That’s really kind of taking it to another gear.”

Strange, you might say, that during the regular schedule the American League A’s play the National League Dodgers even before L.A. faces its longtime NL rival, the Giants. But nothing seems to make sense in sports any more, in part because of Covid-19.

Baseball wants regional matchups as much as possible to reduce cross-country travel.

Besides, the Dodgers, finally champions, have fans in every city, National League or American. Maybe a third of the spectators at the Coliseum on Wednesday wore Dodgers attire.

A’s fans are more vocal than visual, continually chanting “Let’s go Oakland.” The team at last responded.

“I think over the past six games, we all just got tired of getting our ass kicked, to be honest with you,” Luzardo said. “And after the first, it was just internally, I’m done with it. I’m done getting embarrassed.”

Just another game but a long-awaited one, a victory.