OAKLAND, Calif. — The Oakland Athletics are dropping and throwing away the ball at a staggering rate.
The A’s committed five errors in the first three innings of a 9-0 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Monday night to become the first team in 29 years with at least 13 fielding miscues in the first five games of the season.
“I wish I had an answer for the defense right now,” Kotsay said. “They’re going to have to get better. That’s just all there is to it. These first five games, if you told me we were going to play as bad defensively as this, I would have said you’re dead wrong. We’ll see how they respond tomorrow.”
The mistakes came early with catcher Shea Langeliers throwing a ball into center field on a stolen base attempt by Jarren Duran two batters into the game.
Two more errors came in the second inning with center fielder JJ Bleday dropping Emmanuel Valdez’s drive to the warning track for a two-base errors and right fielder Lawrence Butler throwing the ball away on a sacrifice fly, allowing a second run to score.
Two more miscues followed in the third with first baseman Ryan Noda throwing the ball away on an infield hit by Valdez and starter Joe Boyle making a wild throw on a pickoff attempt at second base.
“We couldn’t get out of our way the first three innings,” Kotsay said.
Oakland became the first team in seven years to commit at least five errors in the first three innings of a game with Seattle the last to do it on August, 27, 2017, against the New York Yankees.
The A’s have made at least one error in every game with the 13 the most in the first five games of a season since the Chicago White Sox had 18 in 1995. It’s also the most errors in the first five games of a season for the franchise since the Philadelphia had 16 in 1923.
Kotsay addressed the team before the game about the defensive struggles and said they will continue to have extra work pregame.
“Every day we go out and work on our defense,” he said. “Again it’s hard for me to kind of put my mind around it. But it happened tonight and we’ll move forward and see how we come out (Tuesday.)”