Oakland A’s Game #66: A’s Strike Out 16 times, losing 5-1 to Royals

The Oakland A lineup had another rough night.

The A’s scored a season-high on strikes Friday in the opener of a weekend series at the Coliseum amid a 5-1 loss to the Kansas City Royals.

*** Click here to revisit tonight’s game thread! ***

Once again, Oakland couldn’t move much on offense. They hit the plate 16 times from 37 trips while amassing just five hits and five walks. This is the 23rd time this season they’ve been limited to one run or fewer from 66 games.

Meanwhile, the Royals hit 11 goals and capitalized on a few defensive errors by the A’s by scoring in four different innings. They grabbed an early lead and held onto it as neither side put on more runs after the top of 5th place.

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Kansas City started scoring right away against Starter Frankie Montas. They lined up three hard punches in the 1st inning for a run, then a few more in the 2nd inning for another run, and then blasted a solo homer in the 3rd.

The 5th inning brought two more runs that were unearned thanks to the left side of the infield. A groundball bounced past the third baseman MattDavidson for a blunder to board a runner, set up a sack fly for an RBI, and later landed a pop-up between Davidson and shortstop Elvis Andres to enable another gift run.

It was such a night and it was such a year.

• Months: 5 IP, 5 runs (3 earned), 4 Ks, 3 BB, 1 HR, 10 hits, 103 pitches

The Bullpen closed the Royals thereafter, including three scoreless innings through relievers Austin Pruittbut the damage was done.

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The A’s have their own best chance of scoring in the 2nd inning. With two outs, they put together two singles and a walk to load the bases, and a wild pitch allowed Andrus to score from the third goal – a fair bit of rushing on a ball that bounced not that far from the catcher. Another single reloaded the bases and counted as their only hit tonight with runners in goal position, but a groundout eventually pinned them all.

Oakland put together a few brief threats after that, including a two-out double in the 5th, two runners in the 6th, and a pair of walks in the 9th, but they never got to third base again, let alone home plate.

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While the A Defense made a few costly mistakes, there was one nice game worth watching. Here is Chad Pinder makes a jumping catch in left field.

The fans also got involved and showed us how important it is to support the game.

Oakland has the worst record in MLB at 22-44 and the second-lowest offense. Until tomorrow!