Recap: A’s @ Royals Game 115

Seldom does a team win a game when they manage a mere three hits. That is exactly what happened tonight as the A’s were felled by the Kansas City Royals and Jeremy Guthrie at Kauffman Stadium 5-0. Guthrie who has been hittable beyond words this year, including tonight he has a .307/.363/.537 slash line against him, and his BABIP at .312 is not absurdly outside the realm of normal, took care of the A’s. With offense like that you don’t stand a chance.

• The Royals pitching really handled Oakland in this one. Guthrie in seven innings allowed all three hits the A’s would get singles by Josh Donaldson, Jemile Weeks and Coco Crisp. He also would give the A’s their other two baserunners walks to Donaldson and also Chris Carter. All in all the Royals would set down 12 A’s on strikeouts including Brandon Moss and Josh Reddick three times a piece.
• A’s pitching was not given much room for error and Jarrod Parker had a miserable fifth inning that saw to it the A’s would lose. Parker overall went four and two-thirds innings allowing five runs (four of them earned) on five hits and two walks while K’ing three. The fifth was just a mess for Parker as he walked Salvador Perez to start; allowed a double to Jeff Francouer; a run-scoring single to Eric Hosmer that’d give Kansas City all they’d need; a walk to Lorenzo Cain; a Chris Getz sac fly to make it 2-0; a run scoring Alex Gordon single; an error then allowed Alcides Escobar on with another run scoring; followed by a Billy Butler sac fly before Jordan Norberto was put in.
• Norberto ended the miserable fifth with a strikeout of Mike Moustakas, and would strikeout one more in his inning and a third of work. Jerry Blevins and Evan Scribner also both pitched an inning each with Blevins allowing a hit and Scribner striking out two.