OAKLAND – The Oakland A’s fans who braved the blustery winds on Monday endured a dismal and all-too-familiar sight: their overmatched home team flailing at the plate and on the mound.
In the team’s first, albeit preseason, game at the Coliseum of the year, the A’s were defeated by the San Francisco Giants 4-1 in the first of a two-game series between the Bay Area rivals.
A’s rookie outfielder Lawrence Butler broke up a no-hitter in the sixth inning with a single, and gave the fans something else to cheer about when he stole second on a flyball.
Abraham Toro’s RBI single drove in Butler and elicited the closest thing to a roar the Oakland portion of the reported 7,850 fans could muster during what could be the first home game of the team’s last season in Oakland.
“I feel like I did pretty well, but there’s always room for improvement,” Butler said. “We’ve still got to take better at-bats and have better routes (to balls) in the outfield, but you know, that’s what spring training is for.”
Promising second-baseman Zack Gelof was 0-1 and drew a walk, while 2023 All-Star Brent Rooker struck out in two of his three at-bats.
Second-year righthander Mason Miller lit up the radar gun in the top of the ninth. The 25-year-old struck out the side using a fastball that touched 101 MPH.
The A’s dropped to 13-14 in spring training, while the Giants improved to 14-11.
The high-spending Giants are in many ways the anthesis of the A’s, and it was one of their high-profile additions that perplexed Oakland’s overmatched bunch of youngsters and low-cost veterans.
Ex-Cardinal Jordan Hicks, the recent recipient of a four-year, $44 million contract, struck out 10 A’s in five innings of hitless work.
JP Sears had a tougher time, allowing two home runs to Giants catcher Tom Wilson in 3.2 innings. The 28-year-old also walked and struck out three while throwing 70 pitches.
“I’m not super-thrilled with the results, but I feel good about my body and my workload, and how I feel going into Saturday,” Sears told media.
Sears didn’t have his best stuff on Monday, but said he has both high standards and what he considered achievable goals going into the regular season.
“I’m going to keep it simple, which is trying to get to 30 starts and make it into the sixth or seventh inning every game,” Sears said.
After an Austin Slater sacrifice fly and Wilmer Flores belted a home run off A’s reliever Michael Kelly, the offense stayed dormant until Hicks exited in at the end of the sixth.
Oakland will take the trip across the Bay Bridge to Oracle Park for the San Francisco portion of the home-and-home series. The A’s, focused on health, should trot out a much different lineup for the preseason finale.
“The goal of every team is to get out of spring training healthy, and we’ve got a group that we feel confident in,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “We’ve sustained some injuries in the last week and a half. So I’ll get in there tonight and look it over.”