Wood shines with six scoreless frames in A's narrow loss

OAKLAND -- With by far the most experience of any A’s pitcher upon signing with the club this offseason, Alex Wood felt it was imperative that he lead by example.

Given the objective, the start to his A’s career has not gone as he planned. Through seven starts, Wood built up a 6.32 ERA, only pitched into the sixth inning once and carried a 1.98 WHIP that was second-highest behind only Houston’s Hunter Brown (2.20) among the 127 Major League pitchers with at least 25 innings this season.

Coming off a day in which the bullpen had to cover eight innings due to an early exit for Joe Boyle, the A’s longed for a deep outing. Facing the defending World Series champions, Wood stepped up and delivered his best start yet in green and gold with six scoreless innings, allowing just two hits and one walk with three strikeouts.

Wood’s strong effort set the A’s up for the formula that has worked so often for them this season: Get a solid outing from their starter, score just enough runs early and hand it off to a lights-out bullpen.

This time, though, there was a hiccup. Inheriting a two-run lead in the eighth, Lucas Erceg surrendered a go-ahead three-run home run to Corey Seager, which ended up being the difference-maker in Oakland’s 4-2 loss to the Rangers on Monday night at the Coliseum.

Erceg, who came into the night having allowed just two hits and three walks over his last nine appearances, began the eighth by issuing a leadoff walk to pinch-hitter Josh Smith. That free pass set the tone for an uncharacteristic frame that saw the right-hander walk two batters and allow two hits, the most damaging being Seager’s long ball on a 3-2 changeup with two outs. At the same time, flamethrowing closer Mason Miller was warm in the bullpen.

“They made some moves by pinch-hitting against [Erceg],” said A’s manager Mark Kotsay. “The Seager at-bat, 3-2 changeup, that’s why he makes [$325 million.] This is a small blip for Erceg. I’ve had nothing but confidence in him. He’s had nothing but success in that situation this season.”

Erceg’s blown save will be magnified, given that it was the A’s first loss this season when leading after seven innings. The offense, however, was just as responsible for its inability to cash in. Despite collecting seven hits, the A’s went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base. Their two runs came on a pair of sacrifice flies by Darell Hernaiz in the second and Esteury Ruiz in the fifth.

“We had a chance to add on,” Kotsay said. “Adding on against good teams is what you need to do to put them away. We’ve been able to add on as of late. But tonight, we couldn’t get that support we needed late and it ended up costing us.”

On a night in which the A’s squandered a chance to close the distance on Texas, which moved into first place while Oakland trails by three games, the silver lining could be found in Wood finally looking like he usually does at his best. He worked fast by pounding the zone with 54 of 78 pitches going for strikes and generated plenty of weak contact – the average exit velocity of the 17 balls in play against him was just 89.7 mph.

“The biggest thing for me is strikes,” Wood said. “I’m a strike thrower. … That was a big thing for me today. Going in and getting strike one and attacking guys. Usually, when you do that, you get some of those quick outs like we did tonight.”

Wood referenced his previous outing last week against Pittsburgh as frustrating due to his inability to consistently attack the zone. Pulled after four innings against the Pirates, he threw just 53 of 93 total pitches for strikes that night.

So what was the difference on Monday? Wood said he identified a mechanical flaw with his hand positioning, which he fixed before his start at Yankee Stadium on April 25. This fix helped him go 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball. The issue recurred in last week’s start, but he corrected it again for Monday’s start.

“My hands had gravitated more towards the mid-line or in front of the mid-line of my body,” Wood said. “Going into New York, I had to make sure [my hands] were behind my mid-line. Last start, they kind of gravitated back toward where they had been. Today, I kept that in the back of my mind throughout the outing. It helped my changeup a lot and command in general. Hopefully, it’s something we can keep carrying over and keep filling up the zone.”