By Hal McCoy
For a solid clue as to why the Sacramento A’s have lost 11 straight series, have lost 68 games and have lost 13 of 17, do this:
Take a red pen and circle the eighth inning of Tuesday’s game against the Cincinnati Reds in Great American Ball Park, a 5-4 Reds victory.
The A’s led, 4-3, entering the eighth and their best relief pitcher, lefthander Hogan Harris, took the mound.
Hogan was no hero.
Before the inning was over, the Reds scored two runs without a hit.
How’s that?
They scored both runs on wild pitches, two wild pitches from a pitcher who had thrown only one wild pitch all season.
Suddenly the baseball gods are smiling on the Reds. The Pittsburgh Pirates gave them two wins over the weekend by messing up on defense.
And here is how it unfolded Tuesday night.
With a one-run lead, Harris walked Elly De La Cruz on five pitches. Then he walked Sal Stewart on a full count.
JJ Bleday struck out on three pitches. Tyler Stephenson flied to right for the second out.
De La Cruz took third on a wild throw from right fielder Lawrence Butler on Stephenson’s fly ball. Harris backed up the play and picked up the ball. He didn’t call time and he dropped his head.
Seeing that, Stewart alertly bolted from first to second, perhaps the biggest play of the game.
That put runners on third and second, but there were two outs and Harris had two strikes on Eugenio Suarez, one pitch away from preserving the 4-3 lead. . .and Suarez had struck out 17 times in his last 29 at bats.
But on the 0-and-2 pitch, Harrris threw one high, wide and ugly — up, up and away and De La Cruz scored to tie it, 4-4.
Harris then went to 3-and-2 on Suarez and threw one low and inside, nearly hitting Suarez on the foot. But the ball scuttled away from catcher Jonah Heim and Stewart scurried home with the go-ahead/winning run.
“Sometimes you catch a break, but sometimes when you do the little things correctly, when you get a break, it matters,” said Reds manager Tito Francona, referring to Stewart’s sneak from first to second.
The Reds, though, were in a generous mood, too.
With the A’s leading, 1-0, Reds starter Brady Singer walked Donovan Walton on a full count after he had him 0-2.
With one out Henry Bolte singled to put runners on second and first. Lawrence Butler hit a ground ball to first baseman Sal Stewart that should have been an inning-ending double play.
Stewart’s throw to second forced Bolte, but when shortstop De La Cruz returned the throw to Singer covering first, he couldn’t find the base with his foot and Butler was safe.
Jacob Wilson then slammed a two-run double off the left field wall and it was 3-0.
But the Reds retrieved all three runs in the bottom of the fifth, a rally started by rookie Henry Rodriguez, making his MLB debut after Nathaniel Lowe was traded.
He walked on four pitches. Matt McLain hit a nine-iron lob down the right field line for a double, sending Rodriguez to third.
De La Cruz lashed a two-run single, took second on the throw in, took third on — what else? — a wild pitch and scored on Stewart’s sacrifice fly to tie it, 3-3.
Yes, the A’s threw five wild pitches.
But the Reds gave it back in the seventh when Sam Moll had two outs and nobody on. But Bolte singled on his way to three hits and stole second.
Butler rolled one of those routine slow-rollers to De La Cruz, balls on which he too often plays nonchalantly. He did on this one and threw the ball into the dirt for an error as Bolte scored to give the A’s a 4-3 lead.
Then came the wild west show put on by Harris to give the Reds their 15th one-run win against 12 losses and their 26th comback win.
The A’s have led in 31 games that they eventually lost.
And don’t put too much blame on Singer for missing the bag and messing up on a possible double play on his 30th birthday.
He held the A’s to three runs, five hits, walked three and struck out six.
After spending most of Monday wondering if he would be traded, Singer received a call at 5:58 from Francona, two minutes before the trade deadline.
Singer wondered if the call was to tell him where he was going, but instead it was to tell him he was pitching Tuesday for the Reds.
“I’m gonna go home and get some sleep, I’m definitely tired,” said Singer. “Lot of stress about what was going to happen. You get to the deadline and figure out, ‘I gotta go pitch tomorrow.’
“I was stressing out in the middle of the day about a trade, y’know moving and all that,” he added. “I’m happy I didn’t have to move.”
And he is confident about what he is seeing from his staying here team that has won four of five series since the All-Star break and won 9 of 13 games.
“Happy to be here and happy to compete with those guys in the lockerrom,” he said. “They compete every day and we’re going to have some fun the next two months, just going out there and giving it our all. I love going to battle with these guys.”