OAKLAND — In his two brief yet impactful seasons with the Giants, Kevin Gausman fully realized his potential and transformed into one of baseball’s better pitchers. He became an All-Star. He earned Cy Young votes.
But there was one box he never quite checked: a shutout.
In his first start back in the Bay Area since his days in San Francisco, Gausman crossed that accomplishment off his to-do list. The former Giant recorded the first career shutout, striking out 10 batters in a dominant performance as the A’s lost to the Blue Jays, 7-0, on Saturday at the Coliseum.
“He played his pitches really well,” said A’s manager Mark Kotsay, whose team’s record fell to 26-40. “The result was probably his best performance maybe of his career.”
As he did so many times in San Francisco, the right-hander Gausman dominated with his splitter, using his signature to help lower his season ERA from 4.60 to 4.00.
“He was locating that splitter really well down in the bottom of the zone,” said A’s outfielder JJ Bleday, who hit a walk-off homer on Friday. “He was getting first-pitch outs, and that’s what kept his pitch count low and made us struggle to score runs.”
Added Brent Rooker: “The splitter is really good. He’s able to manipulate it a little bit and take some different shapes at times, depending on what side of the plate he throws it to. It plays really well off his fastball. His fastball jumps on you. The velo isn’t crazy hard. It’s hard enough — 93, 94 (mph).
“It plays up for whatever reason, and the splitter off of it is really, really good.”
Gausman, interestingly enough, threw nine shutout innings on May 5, 2018, against, coincidentally, the A’s at the Coliseum. He didn’t end up with a shutout because the game went 12 innings (Oakland would win, 2-0), and he was pulled after the ninth.
While Gausman was efficient, needing 109 pitches to go the distance, Oakland’s Luis Medina walked five batters and allowed six earned runs across 4 2/3 innings. For Medina, Saturday’s outing marked the fourth time in 19 career starts that he’s walked at least five batters.
“He was really fighting himself,” Kotsay said. “He didn’t look comfortable.”
After allowing no earned runs over 5 2/3 innings against the Braves in his season debut, Medina had little feel for the zone against the Blue Jays (31-33) from the jump.
In the first inning, Medina loaded the bases by surrendering three straight walks to Spencer Horwitz, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Bo Bichette. Medina limited the damage to one run as Danny Jansen drove in Horwitz with a sacrifice fly to the left-field warning track, Toronto’s first first-inning run since May 4.
Despite stumbling out of the gates, Medina appeared to find his groove. Following a scoreless second where he walked a batter, Medina retired the side in the third and fourth innings, looking on his way to salvaging a shoddy start. That hope was short-lived.
Kevin Kiermaier disrupted Medina’s rhythm with a no-doubt solo home run on the first pitch of the fifth inning. Medina recorded two quick outs following Kiermaier’s homer, but Toronto’s offense subsequently erupted.
With two outs, Guerrero, Bichette, and Jansen generated two runs on back-to-back-to-back doubles. Medina exited the ballgame after walking Daniel Vogelbach, his fifth and final free pass of the afternoon.
Jack O’Loughlin entered for Medina and initially had his own command issues.
The southpaw walked Daulton Varsho, gave up an RBI single to Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and then allowed Vogelbach to score on a wild pitch. By the end of the inning, the Blue Jays had a 6-0 lead — plenty of run support for Gausman.
O’Loughlin ended up tossing 3 1/3 scoreless innings but was seen clearing out his locker following the game.
“I thought after the first, he settled in a little bit and got through three innings,” Kotsay said. “Then, that fifth inning, he was just trying to throw strikes and leaving balls in the middle of the plate and got touched up a bit.”
Mitch Spence (4-3, 3.86 ERA) will take the mound on Sunday as the A’s go for the series victory.
Sasaki visits Coliseum
Rinataro Sasaki, who made the unprecedented move to attend Stanford instead of being the likely first pick in the NPB Draft, made his first-ever visit to the Coliseum on Saturday.
“I’ve only seen a couple of clips, but he looks good,” said A’s infielder Darell Hernaiz, who chatted with Sasaki for several minutes. “I’m excited to see how it plays out. Maybe it shakes up the future for some Japanese prospects for them to come over earlier. We could get guys like Shohei (Ohtani) a little earlier to MLB.”
Sasaki, who attended the same high school as Ohtani and the Blue Jays’ Yusei Kikuchi, hit a Japanese high school record 140 home runs. The first baseman will play his first season in 2025.