Padres 2, Athletics 4: Bullpen couldn’t close things out

The Padres bullpen that have notoriously pitched full games for wins and have been a reckoning across baseball as one of the most dominate groups of relievers and closers couldn’t bring that same consistency tonight. In extra innings the Padres allowed a final run from Oakland that would lead to a disappointing loss.

Eric Lauer, who is working his way past a batch of bad starts, had a good one tonight. He threw a 3-hitter, allowing only a single run (unearned) across 6 innings while striking out 7. He was followed by a great performance of Jose Castillo, Craig Stammen, and Kirby Yates who all held Oakland to a single run.

The Padres put on just enough offense to stay on top, with Jose Pirela notching an RBI-ground out in the first inning and Raffy Lopez hitting his first double of the season for an RBI in the second inning, keeping the Pads up 2-1.

Unfortunately, and uncharacteristically, a usually dominate Brad Hand would end up giving up a 2-out solo HR to Stephen Piscotty at the top of the 9th, tying the game 2-2 and blowing the save. With no answer in the bottom of the 9th, the A’s jumped on Adam Cimber with another HR from Jed Lowrie, a 2-run shot, putting the A’s up 4-2 in the 10th.

The Friars had no answer in extras, and Oakland escaped with the first win of a two game series. Tomorrow, Joey Lucchesi will return from his DL time to hopefully give the Friars another quality start and the bullpen a chance to redeem themselves from tonight’s blemish.