Infield Defense Fails Bassitt as Athletics' Win Streak Ends at Nine

The Oakland Athletics, who had made just 10 errors in the first 26 games, had one of those days Saturday, comitting three errors and botching a throw. That put the club in a four-run hole out of which the A's were not able to climb.

The backdrop , indeed the spine, of the A’s the last few years almost goes without notice.

When you do notice it, there’s going to be a chance what you see won’t be pretty.

Such was the case Saturday as the Oakland infield defense fell apart. Errors by third baseman Matt Chapman, second baseman Tony Kemp and shortstop Marcus Semien and a non-error on which Chapman failed to cut down a run at the plate kept building up over the first half of the A’s-Angels game, putting Oakland in a four-run hole.

It proved, for once, that the A’s didn’t have enough in the tank to come back, and the Angels brought the A’s nine-game Oakland Coliseum winning streak to an end, 4-3.

A’s manager Bob Melvin said “we’re probably one of the better teams in the league defensively.” He said it in the wake of the A’s, who’d been second in the league with just 10 errors made, having slipped into the middle of the pack with just one off game.

“It wasn’t our best day defensively,” the manager said. “Sometimes you’re going to have off days.”

Chapman, the two-time Platinum Glove winner for his defense at third base, had a chance to throw out David Fletcher at the plate in the first. His throw was a little wide, catcher Austin Allen couldn’t both catch it and slap on the tag. That enabled Fletcher to score, putting put A’s starter Chris Bassitt in a 1-0 hole. In the second inning Chapman couldn’t handle grounder with double play potential that could have ended the inning. Three runs scored after that.

“Defense is something that we consider a strong suit,” Chapman said. “It helps us win ballgames. There will be days like this sometimes. I think, I know, that we will bounce back. There are a few plays today I personally would have liked to make and feel I should make. It was just one of those days.”

Put into a 4-0 hole, Bassitt was almost out of the game in the second inning. On a day when Melvin was short in the bullpen, Bassitt recovered, however, and pitched into the sixth.

And he wasn’t pointing any fingers.

“We have Gold Gloves all around, and when then don’t make the plays, it looks weird,” Bassitt said. “I just told myself, `just kept getting ground balls and trust the defense behind me, and I did.”

Bassitt needed 33 pitches to get through the second inning, and the situation got dire enough that reliever T.J. McFarland began loosening up. But Bassitt slipped a called third strike past Anthony Rendon, who’d had four hits the night before, to end the inning, and the Angels didn’t threaten against him the rest of his time on the hill.

The A’s rallied, getting one run in the second, another in the fourth and one more in the fifth. And it wasn’t lost on Chapman that much of that offense was generated by players with errors. 

Kemp drove in Oakland's first run with a double. Chapman brought in the second with a home. First baseban Matt Olson's double brought home the final run.

The A's clearly weren’t dragging their defensive issues to the plate with them, evidently.

“For sure,” Chapman said. “We’re obvious upset about (the errors). But it’s something that you can’t dwell on too much. Those happened early in the game, and there's a lot of baseball left. And if there’s something that our team does really well, we try to pick each other up.

“We were able to stay resilient, to show that we didn't give up and we're not going to just throw in the towel. So, I think you know, we're a team that battles and we battled till the end there today, but we just fell short.”

Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3

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