The Athletics didn’t just lose another series against the White Sox. They got swept again, and the way it happened only deepened the sense that something is badly off.
After Sunday’s loss, the A’s are sitting on a nine-game losing streak, the longest in baseball by a wide margin. The rotation has been a problem all season, but the bigger concern from this series is that the staff hasn’t really moved forward at all. In fact, a lot of it has gone backward.
J.T. Ginn was the arm with the best chance to keep the sweep from happening, but that didn’t hold up.
He lasted 4.1 innings, gave up six hits, and was charged with eight of Chicago’s nine runs. Aaron Civale had a rough outing in the opener as well, allowing six hits and four runs in just 2.1 innings.
A rotation shuffle during the All-Star break feels necessary.
Pitching usually drives the Athletics’ losses, but this series didn’t break that way every night. The offense was just as stuck.
In Game 1, the A’s scored one run. In Game 2, they were blanked.
In the finale, they managed one run again.
That’s a hard fall for a club that was once among the top five teams in batting average. Still, there were a couple of bright spots in the lineup.
Jacob Wilson and Joshua Kuroda-Grauer both stood out, with Wilson hitting .455 and JKG batting .364. Those are the kinds of numbers the A’s need to carry into the second half.
The bullpen, for the most part, actually gave the team a chance outside of the ugly opener. Luis Medina and Hogan Harris combined for 2.1 hitless innings in Game 2. In Game 3, Jose Suarez, Mark Leiter Jr., and Justin Sterner worked 3.2 innings and allowed just three hits and one run.
If that version of the bullpen shows up after the break, the A’s could start to climb out of this. But if this is the same inconsistent group we’ve seen before, then it’s hard to look at this series through rose-colored glasses.
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