OAKLAND, Calif. – JJ Bleday’s three-run home run in the bottom of the second inning Wednesday was exactly the kind of big hit the Oakland A’s had been getting on their season-long seven-game win streak that began earlier this month.
The rest of the A’s performance against the Tampa Bay Rays, though, bore more resemblance to the first two months of the season.
Bleday’s homer accounted for the A’s only offense Wednesday in a 6-3 loss to the Rays before 7,055 at the Coliseum, roughly one-quarter of the announced crowd of 27,759 that attended Tuesday’s game when fans organized a ‘Reverse Boycott’ to implore team owner John Fisher to sell the franchise.
Fisher wants to move the A’s to Las Vegas and on Wednesday, Nevada lawmakers gave final approval to public funding for a portion of a proposed $1.5 billion stadium located on the Las Vegas Strip.
Against the Rays, the A’s left five runners on base and went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position as they dropped their first game since June 5 when they lost 5-4 to the Pittsburgh Pirates midway through a nine-game road trip.
A’s starting pitcher Luis Medina allowed eight hits and four earned runs over 4 2/3 innings, his second-shortest outing of the season after he lasted just two innings in a June 3 start in Miami.
Oakland in total allowed 12 hits, and had their shortcoming defensively with two errors.
The A’s seven-game winning streak had been the longest active streak in MLB and the longest by an A’s team since Aug. 4-12, 2021 when they also won seven in a row. Oakland has not won more than seven straight since winning 13 in a row from April 9-24, 2021.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the streak matched the longest in Major League history by a team with a sub-.200 winning percentage entering the streak. Both the 1885 Detroit Wolverines and 1895 Louisville Colonels also had seven-game streaks.
During the streak, the A’s outscored the opposition 41-20, and had an ERA of 2.67 ERA (19 earned runs in 64.0 innings). They also batted .272 (63-for-232).
The A’s managed seven hits Wednesday, but couldn’t tack on any more runs after Bleday’s homer, his fourth of the season.
Down 4-3, the A’s loaded the bases with one out in the sixth inning. But Rays right-hander Ryan Thompson got Aledmys Díaz to ground into a double play.
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