A’s Drop Saturday Contest To Giants 6-4

The A’s couldn’t make it two in a row over their former Bay Area rivals. The Green & Gold dropped the middle game of their weekend series against San Francisco Giants on Saturday evening in Sacramento, with their comeback attempt coming up short in a 6-4 loss that drops their record to 23-22. Can still take the series with a win tomorrow though!

Severino‘s struggles at home return

The starting pitcher for the A’s tonight was veteran Luis Severino, making his 10th start of the year. Coming into tonight he had been on a roll, with four quality starts in a row including a couple games at Sutter Health Park, where he’s had struggles at times during his two-year stint with the A’s.

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Those home struggles reared their ugly head tonight against a Giants offense that has failed to live up to expectations so far this season. Sevy gave up a solo home run in the first inning to the hot-hitting Casey Schmitt and only due to a heads up play on his part did he not allow another in the second. The Giants continued getting good contact on Severino in the third, plating two runs on three hits and a walk that quickly made this game 3-0 Giants.

There was never really a quiet inning for Severino in this one. He escaped giving up a one-out triple in the fourth but the Giants got to him again. Specifically, Schmitt got to him again as he connected for his second homer of the night, a two-run shot to that pushed this to a 5-0 game. The Giants continued to rally against Sevy but couldn’t add on to their already big lead. One more inning of work and another runner in scoring position stranded and his night was done after six full innings of work

• Luis Severino: 6 IP, 10 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 2 HR, 96 pitches

Not a great outing from the right-hander tonight. The Giants were all over him in every inning, not giving him any chance to find any sort of rhythm and settle in. Goes to show you that even an underwhelming offense like the Giants can give it to any pitcher on any given day. So goes baseball. Severino will try to bounce back next week and he lines up to face the Los Angeles Angels in the series finale.

A’s offense clueless against McDonald

The Athletics’ offense was going up against a rookie pitcher with all of four career starts entering this evening’s contest. Trevor McDonald however has come on strong this year and the A’s suffered the same fate as the previous two lineups to go up against the young right-hander.

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Over the game’s first four innings the bats couldn’t muster much. They wasted a two-out Soderstrom double in the first as well as a two-on, one out scenario in the fourth but couldn’t break through against the pitcher that likely none of them have ever seen before.

They did manage to get on the scoreboard in the fifth. A leadoff walk and single put runners on the corners with no outs for second baseman Jeff McNeil. A big hit could have gotten the A’s offense started and got us back in the game. A groundball brought home the runner from third but also killed the rally as the next two couldn’t keep the line going.

First baseman Nick Kurtz made it close but he managed to extend his on-base streak to 39 games with an eighth-inning walk. That ties another great A’s first baseman Jason Giami’s record (twice) for second-most in Athletics history. Only Mark McGuire’s 48-game streak is in front of him now and that record is getting awfully close.

The final frames

After Severino’s six innings of work it was the bullpen’s job to keep the Giants from blowing this game open anymore than it already was. Scott Barlow was first up and gave up a double to the first batter he saw. An error on the next didn’t help matters but another double brought in that run anyway. With no outs Barlow needed a strikeout in the worst way possible, and he got two straight. A fly out got him out of the jam but the score was now 6-1 with only nine outs for the A’s to play with. Mark Leiter Jr. finished the pitching for the A’s tonight, firing off two scoreless innings.

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The Giants’ McDonald meanwhile continued to pitch into the seventh inning and the A’s still were mostly clueless against him. They finally chased him from the game thanks to a two-out double from Darell Hernaiz but stranded him there. Just six outs left.

Now into the Giants’ bullpen, the bats suddenly remembered how to hit. First baseman Nick Kurtz made it close but he managed to extend his on-base streak to 39 games with an eighth-inning walk to start things off. That ties another great A’s first baseman Jason Giambi’s record (twice) for second-most in Athletics history. Only Mark McGuire’s 48-game streak is in front of him now and that record is getting awfully close.

Langeliers followed Kurtz with his own free pass. After a harmless flyout from Soderstrom, 2025 All-Star Brent Rooker stepped to the plate and blasted an absolute no-doubt three-run homer down the left field line to make this a ballgame again: