A’s lose to Red Sox 5-4 in 11 innings

A bounce back from Wood though

The Oakland Athletics dropped the second game of the series against Boston, losing to the Red Sox 5-4 in 11 innings.

Lefty Alex Wood got the start at the Coliseum tonight, a warm evening for his second start of the season. He struggled during his Opening Day assignment while pitching only 3 ¹⁄₃ innings while giving up six runs. Tonight he allowed runs in each of the first three innings, so it felt like it would be more of the same early.

Oakland was ready to keep up tonight. Facing the Red Sox’s Opening Day starter Bryan Bello, catcher Shea Langeliers came up in the second inning with a runner on and mashed his first home run of the season, a 2-run shot to get the Athletics on the board:

That wouldn’t be the only scoring from the Athletics tonight. Just one inning later, center fielder came up to bat with a runner on and did the same thing, blasting a 2-run homer over the right-center fence to give Oakland their first lead of the night and the series:

Desperate for a shutdown inning, Alex Wood came through for the club in the fourth frame and even gave them a 1-2-3 fifth to qualify for the possible win. He would walk the first batter of the sixth inning before manager Mark Kotsay decided to go to the bullpen. Wood’s second start was officially over.

-Wood: 5 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 7 K, 96 pitches

That’s the kind of line that the club was hoping to see on Opening Day. A tough beginning to the game but he really settled down late. A much better appearance than his Opening Day nod and a building block that Wood can build off of in his next start, which is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday against the division-rival Texas Rangers.

Newly joined reliever Austin Adams took the ball in relief of Wood and had an excellent outing, striking out two of his three batters faced and stranding the runner at first. An excellent appearance for Adams in his third appearance for the club.

Another new reliever, lefty TJ McFarland came on for the top of the seventh and didn’t have an easy time. He gave up two hits, and one of those baserunners came around to score after Lucas Erceg came on in relief of McFarland and allowed two more hits, tying the game and putting two runs still in scoring position.

The Oakland bats meanwhile were pretty quiet after the Bleday home run. They couldn’t get much going against the Boston bullpen, collecting just two hits over the next four innings.

With the game tied, Kotsay turned to his closer, the firsballer Mason Miller. He had a stellar outing, going two innings and keeping the Red Sox off the board. He capped off his night by getting a massive strikeout, keeping this game tied.

It wasn’t meant to be tonight though. Boston finally broke through and scored the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th off of Mitch Spence, and the Athletics bats couldn’t bring in the runner from second in the bottom half of the frame, thus securing Oakland’s fifth loss in six games.

It was a lot closer than last night but a loss is a loss. They’ve now lost the first two games of the series and will be hoping to avoid the dreaded sweep tomorrow afternoon in the final game of the home stand before they head out on the road. They’ll be sending out right-hander Ross Stripling to help avoid the series sweep. He’ll be facing Nick Pivetta. Let’s avoid a sweep, guys!