OAKLAND -- Brent Rooker angrily snapping his bat over his right knee following his seventh-inning strikeout on Sunday at the Coliseum encapsulated how things went for the A’s offense over the past two days.

What started out as a promising homestand earlier in the week ended in frustration. Oakland’s 3-0 finale loss to the Twins marked the second consecutive day in which an opposing starting pitcher utterly dominated the A’s.

This time around, Minnesota starter Pablo López racked up a career-high-tying 14 strikeouts across eight scoreless innings. In Saturday’s 10-2 blowout loss, Bailey Ober twirled a complete game against the A’s on just 89 pitches. Outside of solo homers by JJ Bleday and Tyler Soderstrom, the offense was shut down.

At one point, the Twins had retired 34 consecutive A’s batters across the two-day stretch, with the streak finally ending on Sunday when Lawrence Butler’s two-out single in the sixth broke up López's perfect-game bid.

“Those two guys the last two days, Ober and López, they’re solid frontline guys,” said manager Mark Kotsay. “[The Twins] traded one of the best hitters in the game [Luis Arraez] away for that kid that threw today, and he’s dominant. He can have those outings. I know his ERA and his year hasn’t been what most people would expect to this point, but we got the kid that can obviously do what he did today.”

Zooming out to the big picture for this rebuilding A’s club, Kotsay still views what ended up a .500 six-game homestand as a success, especially coming on the heels of a winless seven-game road trip. The A’s took two of three from the Royals earlier in the week and won Friday’s series opener against the Twins with encouraging development from several of their young players on display.

“A split for the homestand against two winning teams at the top of their division,” Kotsay said. “We would have loved a winning homestand and had that chance. But we ran into a couple of buzzsaws. Overall, I would say we played good baseball.”

Hogan Harris was the positive takeaway from Sunday. The left-hander did his best to keep up with López through most of the afternoon against a potent Twins offense whose .788 team OPS against lefties entering the day was second best in MLB behind only the Dodgers (.820).

Harris recovered from a solo shot surrendered to Byron Buxton with one out in the second by retiring 14 of his next 15 batters. Efficiently navigating through six innings of one-run ball on 75 pitches, Harris allowed three straight hits to start the seventh, the last one an RBI double by Buxton that led to his departure. He finished allowing three runs on five hits and two walks with two strikeouts.

“In the seventh, maybe he could have thrown that slow breaking ball that he got Correa with a little earlier in the game,” Kotsay said. “But the strides he’s made, that’s what we’re talking about for these guys. We want to see this incremental growth. The success that he’s having, it’ll translate to wins if he continues to make these steps in the right direction.”

Since moving into the starting rotation on May 30 due to a pileup of injuries, Harris has posted a 2.28 ERA in five starts. It’s easy to pinpoint the key to Harris’ success over that stretch. For one, he’s throwing plenty of strikes, with 10 walks in 27 2/3 innings.

Another big difference from Harris’ 2023 rookie campaign is a retooled slider. In the past, the movement of the slider often blended in with his curveball. After some offseason tweaks, his slider is now distinct, which gives him a solid four-pitch mix along with his four-seam fastball, changeup and curveball.

“I’ve figured out how to throw it a little bit different way to where it actually has a truer slider movement to it,” Harris said. “Now I have four true different pitches instead of three. Being able to have a fourth pitch for them to have to think about is going to continue to help me down the road, especially as I figure out better how to play off what and learn the best situations for everything.”