Toro walks it off with a walk, Blackburn spins a gem

Even winnable wins are difficult for the 2024 Oakland Athletics.

Leading the A’s, Paul Blackburn pitched like he was the Opening Day starter — *cough cough Mark Kotsay* — spinning 7 scoreless innings against a team that scored 26 runs in the series’ first three games. Cleveland batters weren’t able to string any baserunners against the 2022 All-Star, only getting 3 hits and 1 walk.

Oakland’s lineup, aka future MVP JJ Bleday, fared better against the Guardians’ starter, Carlos Carrasco. The center fielder hopped on him quick with a triple in the bottom of the 1st that scored Esteury Ruiz, who was doing Esteury Ruiz things when he off the game with a single and immediately stole second.

Seth Brown from the cleanup spot drove Bleday in with an RBI single to his former teammate, Ramon Laureano. Bleday and Ruiz were back at it again in the 3rd, except this time it was Ruiz with the triple and Bleday getting him home with a single to right, giving the A’s a 3-0 lead, their largest of the series.

The A’s held that lead until Pauly B came out for setup righty Lucas Erceg in the top of the 8th. Trouble began brewing immediately as Guardians DH Estevan Florial skied a flyball to deep right-center field. Lawrence Butler fielded the ball cleanly off the wall and threw it into the cutoff man, who got the ball to J.D. Davis just in time for a bang-bang sliding play at third. The umpire ruled it an out but the call was overturned upon review, setting up a disaster inning for the A’s. After Florial came in on a groundout, Austin Adams came in to replace Erceg and another bit of bad luck hit as the typically handy Nick Allen fumbled a groundball hit to short. As the ball dribbled into the outfield, the batter Jose Ramirez was able to get all the way to second and runner Andres Gimenez scored the Guardians’ second run. A Josh Naylor single tied the game at 3-3 and completed the bullpen’s choke job.

With the A’s first win of the season slipping away, Mark Kotsay turned to a steady hand in Dany Jimenez, who held the Guardians scoreless in the 9th and kept his team’s chances alive. Leading off against Guardians setup man Scott Barlow, Ryan Noda worked the second-biggest walk of the game to kick off Oakland’s 9th inning rally. Rookie Darell Hernaiz took over as a pinch-runner and moved to second on another bang-bang challenge at first on a Shea Langeliers single.

Butler continued the baserunner barrage with his own single up the middle, loading the bases with no outs. All the A’s needed to win was a hit, a sac fly, a sac bunt… or a four-pitch walk. Pinch-hitting for Allen, Abraham Toro took every one of Eli Morgan’s pitches and all of a sudden the A’s were no longer winless.

The A’s are now 1-3 with a surely painless 158 games left to go. Oakland starts its second series of the season tomorrow against the Boston Red Sox, with rookie phenom Joe Boyle making his 2024 debut against Tanner Houck.