Blackburn's gem provides silver lining for A's

CLEVELAND -- The rise of Paul Blackburn continues to be one of the more remarkable developments of the A’s 2022 season. On Friday night, that story received yet another impressive chapter.

With the A’s enduring a season-worst stretch and in need of a lift, Blackburn stepped up by delivering the most impressive performance to date, dominating the Guardians across a career-high eight scoreless innings at Progressive Field.

Backed by a pair of solo shots from Seth Brown and Sean Murphy, Blackburn’s display of brilliance was certainly worthy of a victory. Then, disaster struck.

A two-run lead handed to closer Dany Jiménez in the ninth quickly shrunk when José Ramírez led off by swatting a fastball over the wall in right. Later pitching himself into a bases-loaded jam, Jiménez allowed the tying run to score on a sacrifice fly by Owen Miller. Two batters later, another sacrifice fly by Luke Maile off left-hander Sam Moll plated the winning run for Cleveland to hand the A’s a gut-wrenching 3-2 loss in walk-off fashion.

It was Oakland’s 10th consecutive defeat, now the club’s longest winless streak since 2011, and without a doubt the most heartbreaking of the bunch.

“It’s never easy getting out of these types of situations,” said A’s manager Mark Kotsay. “When you think you’re going to get a break, they genuinely don’t go your way. We’ve got to create them. We’ve gotta grind.”

Given the roll Blackburn was on -- he ended the eighth inning at 101 pitches while retiring 17 of his final 18 batters faced -- the questioning over the decision to pull him was bound to come Kotsay’s way. Asked about the move, Kotsay said he felt confident going to Jiménez, who entered the night 10-for-11 in save opportunities.

“I thought Blackburn did an amazing job with eight innings scoreless,” Kotsay said. “For me, he was done. It was an unbelievable performance. At that point, I made the decision to go to Dany. Dany’s had success in this role. It just didn’t work out tonight.”

As tough as this loss might have been to digest, it certainly doesn’t overshadow what was a career night for Blackburn, who allowed just four hits and issued one walk while striking out three.

Going up against a Cleveland offense that has struck out the least amount of times of any group in the Majors, Blackburn, a known groundball pitcher, took advantage of an aggressive lineup by pitching to contact and allowing his defense, which included spectacular plays by Kevin Smith and Elvis Andrus on ground balls that took away potential hits, to take care of the rest.

“That’s a good team and they’re hot right now,” Blackburn said of the Guardians, now winners of nine of their last 11 contests. “They don’t strike out a lot and put the bat on the ball. I just felt like I stayed within myself and made pitches when I needed to. Not feeling like I have to come into the zone in a 1-0 or 2-0 count.”

Blackburn’s curveball -- an improved offering that has led to his transformation into one of the American League’s top arms this year -- was the pitch he leaned on the most. He threw it 33 times, by far the most he’s ever thrown in a single start, and generated 12 swings of mostly weak contact.

For the season, opposing hitters are now just 3-for-45 against his curveball.

“I was able to land it in any count, so I just kept rolling with it,” Blackburn said of his curve. “I felt like I was getting bad swings on it and not much hard contact. I left one up to Ramírez that he shot down the line. Other than that, there wasn’t a lot of hard contact on it.”

Lowering his ERA to 2.31, sixth-lowest among qualified AL starters, Friday’s outing signified another big step in Blackburn’s emergence. Even though he’s held opposing offenses to low totals in previous outings this season, the A’s had been hesitant to allow him to face lineups a third time through the order. With the heavy success built up to this point, Blackburn earned the trust of Kotsay this time around and rewarded his skipper’s faith.

It’s feel-good moments like the one Blackburn had Friday that the A’s hope will soon lead them out of this rough patch. As demoralizing of a loss as it was, this group remains steadfast that a breakthrough is coming.

“Times like this are tough on anybody,” Blackburn said. “We’re just trying to come in with a clear mind and taking that one-game-at-a-time mentality. It’s tough. But guys are coming in with a positive attitude every day. They’re working. Guys aren’t complaining. Sooner or later, the results are going to turn in our favor.”