It’s pretty disturbing to realize the A’s season could end Wednesday. One more loss and they’re not feeling a whole lot better than the Giants. Some very skeptical, distracted fans have only recently warmed to baseball’s pandemic undertaking, and now the Bay Area version could be shut down like a bad Broadway play.
Worth remembering, perhaps, is a truism that applies to MLB’s postseason and also the NBA playoffs: Consecutive games rarely resemble each other. One day’s despair is the next day’s revival. Let there be one constant — another day with air quality decent enough to play at all — and then tear up the script for Game 2.
Considering how the A’s tend to perform this time of year, giving us all the sound and fury of a vacant library, you wonder exactly how it flips. Surely there’s little sense in connecting separate seasons to each other, but the A’s have a very disheartening trend in place. They need a jolt, something that calls up the memories of Reggie Jackson, Vida Blue, Jose Canseco and Rickey Henderson, and it’s always possible. Or did you forget that, for years, Barry Bonds was known as a postseason choker?
A few thoughts on the A’s 4-1 loss to the White Sox, viewed from this columnist’s familiar spot on the living-room couch:
• White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito was masterful, even more impressive than those zeroes piling up on the scoreboard. Known for his changeup, he established it instantly to get some early outs, including his first two strikeouts. In the sixth, with his perfect-game bid still in place, he seemed to surprise Ramón Laureano with a strike-three slider. Then he used the same pitch to fan Chad Pinder and Sean Murphy. In the seventh, after the A’s first hit, he blew away Robbie Grossman and Marcus Semien on fastballs. The A’s never did have a clear idea what was coming.
• A’s fans won’t like hearing this: Giolito had a disastrous 2018 season that left his ERA at a league-worst 6.13. Vowing to “fix this,” as he told reporters, he spent the fall and winter under the supervision of a trusted friend, Ethan Katz, who had been his high school pitching coach in Southern California. Katz recommended some radical changes in Giolito’s pitching mechanics, the two worked extensively together, and he emerged a new man for the 2019 season.
Does the name sound familiar? Katz is the Giants’ assistant pitching coach, one of the eight little-known coaches elevated to big-league status by the Farhan Zaidi regime in December.
• We’re in an era of great shortstops, so much so that Tim Anderson’s name doesn’t always gain prominence. That has to change. If the White Sox get through this series and go deep into the postseason, it will.
• We’re used to it now, but it’s still bizarre. Dave Flemming, one of ESPN’s best and most well-rounded announcers, called this game from North Carolina (Charlotte) while analyst Jessica Mendoza was in Oregon (Bend). And if you’ve been wondering when Flemming will leave the Giants’ broadcast team for good, rest easy. He cherishes that above all and has no plans to depart.
• We’re also getting accustomed to this, revealed via dugout shots from Game 1: Masks are entirely optional. Wear one, or don’t, or maybe just hang it down on your chin, whatever. Anything goes.
• The in-game interview has been a terrible idea from the beginning, suggesting a bunch of network hacks who don’t understand the intrusion on someone’s business, and it reached a lovely peak with the managers when (a) Bob Melvin couldn’t hear a thing and (b) Chicago’s Rick Renteria got cut off early. Renteria did get in a few words, though, offering the kind of penetrating insight these interviews provide. Giolito, he said, was “doing what he does.”
• Mendoza took issue with Renteria when he let Giolito start the eighth inning, saying he should “keep that smile” on Giolito’s face and let him steam right into his next start. Disagree. It’s a risk only if your pitcher’s gem seems to be disintegrating. Giolito finished the seventh with two strikeouts and Matt Olson’s harmless popup. He had allowed exactly one hit. Of course he deserved to go out there.
• And in the eighth, when Renteria called on a reliever to replace Evan Marshall, it was a guy named (Aaron) Bummer. Perfect.
Bruce Jenkins is a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: bjenkins@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Bruce_Jenkins1
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