Treinen, A's let 3-run lead slip away in 11th
TORONTO -- As the A’s hurried to pack their belongings and get out of Toronto after they took a 5-4 walk-off loss in 11 innings on Sunday at Rogers Centre, completing a three-game sweep for the Blue Jays, one player took the defeat especially hard.
Up until Sunday’s series finale, Blake Treinen had been the picture of consistency for the Athletics. An All-Star last season, the 30-year-old posted a 0.78 ERA with 38 saves over 68 games and 80 1/3 innings, allowing just two home runs and striking out 100. Early this season, the right-hander continued that success, with a 0.68 mark and six saves in his 11 appearances and 13 1/3 innings.
But after a clean 10th inning against Toronto -- and a top of the 11th that saw the A’s take a three-run lead -- Treinen returned for the 11th and didn’t fare as well. He allowed a leadoff double that bounced off the top of the outfield wall, walked the next hitter and then gave up a one-out three-run home run to Brandon Drury that tied the game. Treinen allowed another hit and a walk before the final blow from Justin Smoak, a two-out RBI single.
“Any time you lose, it sucks,” Treinen said. “But to start a road trip 0-3 makes it even worse, and to know that you could have done something about it -- falling behind guys and giving up soft contact like that is just embarrassing on my end. The team scraps as well as it did to get runs late, and then they put their faith in me to go out there and get three outs.
“A leadoff hit is whatever, that guy goes across the plate and it doesn’t matter, it’s [still 4-2], but then I just didn’t execute pitches and I fell behind and lost some feel. It really sucks.”
Added A’s manager Bob Melvin: “He just got a couple balls up. The velo’s still good, he hasn’t pitched in a while. Just was a little different the second inning than the first. … It’s nitpicking on what we’ve seen from him in the past, and we have not seen a game like this from him. Every now and then, you’re going to give up some runs. Today was that day.”
The home run allowed by Treinen -- Drury’s fourth of the season, all coming against the A’s -- was the first long ball he has given up since Aug. 23, 2018.
“If you leave a pitch middle-middle to a big league hitter, they’ll hit it far,” Treinen said. “That’s what happened. He’s had a hot hand against us, and I don’t know, tip your cap, he’s a good hitter.”
On four other occasions this season, Treinen was called upon for more than one inning, though he only finished two frames once. The righty also hadn’t appeared since Wednesday, though he wasn’t blaming the length of his outing or the amount of time between appearances.
“I really don’t know what happened tonight,” he said. “It was just an embarrassing effort. I’ll have to go back and see what happened and work on it. I just feel bad for my teammates because they did such a great job.
"[Chris Bassitt] pitched tremendously, seven innings strong. J.B. [Wendelken] comes in, throws [six] pitches and gets three outs. I throw [39 pitches] and give up [four runs]. It’s tough when they go out there and play as well as they did, and I go out there and give it all up.”
Bassitt continued his impressive start to the season. After allowing a leadoff home run to former A’s infielder Eric Sogard, he was nearly perfect. The 30-year-old right-hander finished seven innings and allowed just two hits the rest of the way, walking none and striking out nine.
“It was pretty good,” Bassitt said. “Still some things to work on. My cutter was pretty bad today, but I kind of masked it with my changeup, which I don’t really think I’ve thrown that many times in my life. But overall, I feel like today was the first day I was able to throw 100 pitches and kind of let everything go. Before, I was on a pitch count, inning count, and today was just normal.”
While the outing was normal for Bassitt, the right-hander felt as though the A’s were out of sorts during the entire three-game set in Toronto.
“Our energy this whole series was kind of bad,” he said. “Not saying we were negative, it was just we were all kind of sleepwalking a little bit. It happens. Everyone goes through this, but we obviously have to snap out of it. … We just need to pick up the energy a little bit and get back to normal things.”
Though Bassitt has been a bright spot in his two starts this season, he believes the entire team is in a funk, though he doesn’t think it will last long.
“Usually you’ll have one pitcher or one hitter or whatever going bad,” Bassitt said. “But unfortunately we’re kind of all hitting it at the same time. I guess it’s unfortunate but fortunate -- get it all out of the way and then turn it on.
“But we just need to relax, stay the course. Our hitters are obviously going to put up a ton of runs this year for us, so it’s not that big of a deal for us. Just get through this and don’t make it incredibly bad. Don’t make the waves, just ride them.”
Adding insult to injury, Melvin announced postgame that Mark Canha’s exit in the eighth inning was because of a right wrist sprain, and he will be evaluated further in Boston.
“It’s been bothering him for a day or so, and he took a few swings and then came in after the inning, and when he went out to first base, he said his wrist was bothering him,” Melvin said. “So we’ll get him checked out tomorrow or the next day.”