![\"\"](\"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/oakland_athletics.png\")
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By Tim Byrnes<\/p>\n
The Athletics were destined to have a difficult time in St. Petersburg against the AL-leading Tampa Bay Rays but being swept for the 11th time this season still hurts. The team seems to have devolved into a swing-happy bunch, trying to push meaningless stats totals across the finish line, and it isn\u2019t a good look.<\/p>\n
(Rays: 2-1)
\nThe Athletics went down (0-2) in the count of 14 at-bats, managing just a double and three singles and wasted a rare \u201cquality start\u201d for pitcher Jack Perkins.<\/p>\n
Perkins flipped a switch and went from struggling pitcher to throwing a career-high 6 2\/3 innings, allowing just four hits, and an earned run.<\/p>\n
The Athletics bullpen had a great series with an era under 2.00, but closer Elvis Alvarado (L 5-4, 4.14) put back-to-back pitches in the same location and AL-home run leader Junior Caminero made him pay, with a walk-off solo bomb and an A\u2019s 2-1 defeat.<\/p>\n
The lone A\u2019s run came when Henry Bolte and Jeff McNeil had back-to-back singles and Bolte scored on a Ty Johnson wild-pitch.<\/p>\n
(Rays: 4-3)
\nJunior Caminero, Jonny DeLuca, and Chandler Simpson opened the Tampa Bay first with three consecutive doubles off of Athletics starter Brady Basso for a quick 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
A Nick Fortes RBI-double, and a Ryan Vilade RBI-single extended the lead to 4-0 after two innings and their run total held up in the 4-3 Athletics loss. Basso (L 1-3, 4.50) lasted only 2 2\/3 innings but the bullpen held up for the remainder of the game.<\/p>\n
Tommy White fought back from an (0-2) count, winning a 10-pitch battle to open the third and homered for the A\u2019s first run. Henry Bolte followed three batters later with his own solo-shot, and the A\u2019s cut the lead in half at 4-2.<\/p>\n
Shea Langeliers added an RBI-single in the sixth, that scored McNeil from third, but the A\u2019s failed to score again.<\/p>\n
White led the A\u2019s at the plate, going 3-for-4 with the home run.<\/p>\n
(Rays: 10-1)
\nAn Athletics series isn\u2019t complete without a blowout loss, and the A\u2019s didn\u2019t disappoint\u2026well, they did disappoint but I digress.<\/p>\n
The bats went back to sleep for the A\u2019s and ended the series with 30 (0-2) counts at the plate (31%). Only another solo home run by Butler kept the Athletics from their 10th shutout-loss of the season, but the team still lost 10-1.<\/p>\n
A microcosm of the Athletics 2026 season occurred in the third when at the plate: they managed a single, a walk, and three stolen bases, and yet still failed to score.<\/p>\n
Starter Jeffrey Springs (L 4-14, 6.18) actually started this game with three uncharacteristically good innings, but he completely melted down and allowed six earned runs in the fourth.<\/p>\n
At the risk of \u201cglossing\u201d the Rays greatness the inning went: {double, walk, walk, force out, single, HBP, double, single} and it was 6-0, giving fans everywhere a flashback to the infamous Yankees game.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the season, the Yankees successfully put 12 consecutive batters aboard and scored twelve runs before the Athletics retired the side.<\/p>\n
A scary incident in the bottom of the eighth inning when Denzel Clarke dove for a Liam Hicks single. Clarke got back up, took two steps, grabbed at his leg and he fell back down.<\/p>\n
Manager Mark Kotsay chose \u201cNOT\u201d to check on his talented center fielder, who had just returned off the injured list recently, and it is a snapshot of the indifference of Kotsay the Manager.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t send out the trainer to make sure that Clarke wasn\u2019t just \u201cmanning-up\u201d through a problematic injury as he stood on the step doing nothing.<\/p>\n
It was lazy, a danger to his player health, and ownership should take notice when making off-season changes.<\/p>\n
Next: 9\/20 410pm pst @ Guardians: Progressive Field, Cleveland Ohio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Tim Byrnes The Athletics were destined to have a difficult time in St. Petersburg against the AL-leading Tampa Bay Rays but being swept for the 11th time this season still hurts. The team seems to have devolved into a swing-happy bunch, trying to push meaningless stats totals across the finish line, and it isn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11059],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98864"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98867,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98864\/revisions\/98867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}