OAKLAND -- Frankie Montas’ return to the Oakland Coliseum after two years Sunday was a long time coming and historic, but ultimately unsuccessful.

Fittingly, the former Oakland ace started the Brewers’ 184th and final game at the Coliseum, which the A’s will vacate after the season for Sacramento and, ultimately, Las Vegas. However, for the first time in five starts since Milwaukee acquired Montas at the Trade Deadline, the team did not win.

The A’s held the Brewers to four hits and prevailed 4-3, scoring all four runs in the fourth inning against Montas to end the right-hander’s string of 16 innings without allowing an earned run. The Brewers failed to complete the three-game sweep and finished 3-3 on their trip. They return home with one game chipped off the 11-game National League Central lead they owned when they left.

Montas felt the significance of pitching in Oakland for the last time. He collected an artifact from his six-inning start, a game ball.

“This place is always going to have a spot in my heart for sure,” he said.

Montas had a fine career in Oakland before his 2022 midseason trade to the Yankees. He said his greatest memories with the A's are reaching the postseason in three straight seasons (2018-20) and enjoying a career year in 2021. He made a league-best 32 starts, had a 3.37 ERA, struck out 207 and finished sixth in American League Cy Young balloting.

“I was looking forward to coming back to the Coliseum,” he said. “I have so many great memories here. They’re going to be on my mind until I retire. The Oakland fans didn’t do anything but give us love.”

Montas also went through a lot, much of it bad, since he left Oakland. He missed virtually all of 2023 after shoulder surgery. The Reds signed him for 2024 but shipped him to Milwaukee on July 30.

The injury and move to the National League kept him from facing Oakland, home or road, until Sunday.

The announced crowd of 15,961 saw the best of Montas as he retired the first nine A’s on 41 pitches. But Oakland hitters swung more aggressively in the fourth. They loaded the bases with nobody out on singles by Lawrence Butler, Brent Rooker and JJ Bleday, whose 99-mph laser had Montas playing dodgeball.

The rally hinged on a 3-2 pitch to Shea Langeliers. The tracker showed it clipped the bottom of the zone, but umpire C.B. Bucknor called it a ball and the walk forced home a run. Seth Brown followed with an RBI single that tied the game 2-2, and the A’s took a 4-2 lead on sacrifice flies by Daz Cameron and Zack Gelof.

Brewers manager Pat Murphy said the rally shows why a pitcher can’t place himself in a position to let an umpire’s call dictate the trajectory of an inning.

“Sometimes you’re going to be frustrated by a call here and there,” Murphy said. “Maybe it was a strike, maybe it wasn’t. But the bottom line is you’ve got to limit the damage.”

The real issue for Murphy, though, was the lack of offense. The Brewers scored their runs on a Gary Sánchez two-run homer in the second and Willy Adames’ solo shot leading off the seventh. Otherwise, the Brewers put only one runner into scoring position.

Before the game, Murphy said he appreciated Montas’ presence for many reasons, starting with his experience on a very young team. He also helps fill in the rotation with Corbin Burnes traded to Baltimore last winter and Brandon Woodruff out for the year after shoulder surgery.

Montas drew raves from the other clubhouse as well.

“I love Frankie Montas,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “I had the privilege of managing him and watching him pitch. Today was no different. We got him in the fourth, but then he shut it back down. That’s the Frankie Montas I know. It’s fun to watch him compete.”

The biggest positive for the Brewers was left-hander Aaron Ashby’s two shutout innings in his first big-league game since June. Ashby has had a rocky return from a 2023 shoulder operation, spending most of 2024 in the Minors trying to find the strike zone. He had 73 walks in 84 innings at Triple-A Nashville.

With the loss, the Brewers finished 71-113 at the Coliseum, which opened in 1966, three years before the Brewers franchise was born in Seattle.