Athletics' bullpen struggles continue with blown lead in loss to Red Sox
On "A's Cast," Chris Townsend and Steve Sax break down the Athletics' loss to the Boston Red Sox on Thursday night at Sutter Health Park.
Athletics' bullpen struggles continue with blown lead in loss to Red Sox originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
Good battle.
You got a really good battle going right here, and then you just hang a changeup.
Yeah.
And this thing, you know, a lot of talk about this ballpark, but the two home runs that you're going to see, they're basically out in every ballpark in baseball.
Oh, yeah.
So it has nothing to do with the ballpark.
It has nothing to do with the conditions.
It's about where you throw the baseball.
And the only thing about this, Townie, too, and here's the hanging curveball, is they beat him with his second and third best pitches.
His fastball is his best pitch.
He can cut that fastball a little bit, but to hang a changeup, to hang a curveball, those aren't his best pitches yet.
He's trying to get them, sharp, more sharp than they are, and, they cost the game today.
Yeah, you can I- if you're watching the sequence, the worst thing that you can do as a pitcher is slow up your arm on a breaking ball or an off-speed pitch.
Yes.
You start telegraphing it.
Next thing you know, the hitter sees that, and he knows it's off-speed.
That looked like he slowed up his arm, but you see the bullpen since the All-Star break.
Yeah.
7.92 ERA, the whip, the home runs.
It's just not good news.
As much as we wanna praise them, and there's certain nights where they actually have been good- Yes the overall numbers Now, a lot has to do with that also.
The first game out of the break, you gave up 23 runs, so that's gonna juice the numbers a little bit.
Yeah.
But like tonight, you got a start that kept you competitive.
This was a competitive game.
The bullpen comes in, two home runs, and it's ballgame over.
Yeah, and other than that, we saw, you know, big hits from the team.
Malika Williams came in at the end and gave 'em a shot.
Lawrence has been hot.
Great base running.
They manufactured runs tonight.
They made productive outs.
There's a lot of good things that happened good on this team today, but just wasn't quite enough.
You're playing, now remember, you know, pr- pretty much the hottest team in baseball right now, so you lose three out of four all within one run.
