Ugh
The inevitable has finally happened. The A’s were perfected by Yankees right-hander Domingo German tonight in a blowout loss to New York, losing by a final of 11-0 in an historic evening.
Pitching solid early, falls apart later
This game started off the perfect way when Esteury Ruiz made a nice diving catch in center field for the first out of the game:
Este flies in for the grab ✈️ pic.twitter.com/tBkBSOIBjC
— A’s on NBCS (@NBCSAthletics) June 29, 2023
And then things got quiet. Real quiet. For the first three innings all that happened was a Sears walking one Yankee batter. He was rolling.
The game finally saw it’s first big hit in the fourth but it wasn’t the A’s. It was Giancarlo Stanton connecting on the first pitch he saw in the fourth for a no-doubt home run to give the Yankees the 1-0 lead.
And it got worse from there. Way worse. New York rallied for six runs in the fifth, with every single one of those getting charged to Sears. Here’s how the inning went for him:
-Walk—Double—Single—Single—-Walk—Fielding error
And that was all Mark Kotsay could see. With the bases still loaded, he turned to the bullpen and mercifully ended Sears’ day after 92 pitches and four runs in.
-JP Sears: 4+ IP, 5 H, 7 R (6 ER), 3 BB, 5 K, 92 pitches
This game started strong enough but man did Sears fall apart fast in the fifth. You can’t really be mad about the Stanton home run but it felt like he completely lost it in the fifth. Unfortunately for him Shintaro Fujinami relieved Sears and immediately allowed a 2-run single, with both of those getting charged to Sears. Ultimately all three of the runners Sears was responsible for came around to score. His season ERA rose from 4.10 to 4.53 from this start.
New York would end up scoring a few more times the rest of the way. Yacksel Rios left the game injured, Austin Pruitt pitched two scoreless innings and Sam Long got touched up in the ninth for three runs.
Bats (literally) non-existent
The offense meanwhile looked hopeless against Domingo German from the get-go. The right-handed Yankee, coming off a couple tough starts, was in control for the entire contest. His pitch count wasn’t ever an issue and there weren’t really any close calls as far as a hit dropping in. In fact the biggest challenge for him tonight was probably the time between innings while the Yankee bats went to town on the A’s pitchers. German finished this game off on just 99 pitches.
What else is there to say? So comes to an end the longest streak of avoiding a no-hitter. It lasted over 5,000 games but all good things come to an end.
It’s been a while since the A’s have been no-hit pic.twitter.com/XJiuHBGWrO
— A’s on NBCS (@NBCSAthletics) June 29, 2023
And the last time the A’s were perfected? 1904 by Cy Young himself. Which also happened to be the very first ever perfect game. Of course it had to happen this year of all years. What a tough, tough season.
They’ll try to bounce back tomorrow in the series finale when they can still win the series. Would be nice to do that after this game.