Athletics long to continue series versus Rangers (Jul 24, 2018)
The Oakland Athletics have Major League Baseball's most prolific power team on the road this season and flexed their considerable muscle early and often in their 15-3 victory over the Texas Rangers on Monday in the opener of a four-game series at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas.
The A's ripped four homers, highlighted by Jonathan Lucroy's grand slam in the second inning off Texas ace Cole Hamels, to build their major league-leading total away from home to 89. Oakland amassed 18 hits Monday and 10 of them were for extra bases.
The series continues Tuesday. Oakland will activate right-hander Frankie Montas (5-2, 3.35 ERA) to the roster for the game while the Rangers will send left-hander Mike Minor (6-6, 4.89) to the hill.
Monday's outing dimmed Hamels' prospects of getting traded prior to the July 31 deadline. It was the fifth consecutive start in which he has allowed at least four runs, and in three of those, he's allowed seven. In four July starts, Hamels has made it through more than five innings once and has a 10.50 ERA.
"Cole has put together competitive starts," Texas manager Jeff Banister told the Dallas Morning News. "There's been some challenges inside some of those starts. It took him a little while to find the rhythm he is accustomed to.
"From the start of the season until now, he's in a better place. There's been flashes of quality stuff in a number of outings, but not the normal consistency Cole is accustomed to."
Montas was in the A's clubhouse ahead of Monday's game. He has held opponents to three runs or fewer in six of his eight starts, going at least five innings in seven of them, and shut out Houston through six innings in his last big league start on July 9, yielding three hits with two walks and two strikeouts.
"It's a little different than what we've had here recently with guys going down, and now we have tougher decisions to make about who's going to be part of the five," A's manager Bob Melvin told MLB.com. "Frankie did exactly what we asked him to the last couple times out."
Montas is averaging 2.8 walks per nine innings, after averaging 5.6 out of the bullpen last year. Moreover, he's yielded two homers across 48 1/3 innings, compared to 10 in 32 innings in 2017.
"It's confidence," Melvin said of Montas' improvement. "The stuff's always been the same for him. It's throwing it over the plate, it's trusting your mechanics and being confident on the mound -- you can just see the talent level come out. That's because of the confidence level he has on the mound now. He's pitched really well, and he should be confident."
Minor allowed six runs (five earned) in an abbreviated start July 15 in Baltimore. His extra rest is more a function or the Rangers' caution than his recent performance, as he nears 100 innings already after spending 2017 in the Royals' bullpen.
It will be the 19th start of the season for Minor. He is 2-2 with a 3.60 ERA in his last seven starts.
Minor is 1-1 with a 3.72 ERA in four games (one start) in his career against the A's, including three relief outings with Kansas City in 2017. His lone start versus Oakland came Aug. 17, 2014 when he was with Atlanta. No current A's played in that game.
