Oakland Athletics pitcher Adrian Martinez delivers to the Baltimore Orioles in the fifth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Gail Burton)
The Oakland A’s will have no choice but to keep Adrián Martínez in their starting rotation if the rookie right-hander keeps pitching like he did Sunday.
Maybe that’s the A’s plan regardless, with struggling James Kaprielian moving to the bullpen.
Martínez allowed three hits and struck out four over six scoreless innings as the A’s finished a week-long road trip with a 5-0 victory over the Baltimore Orioles (71-62) at Camden Yards.
Shea Langeliers drove in two runs with a third-inning single and Seth Brown had his second two-home run game of the season as the A’s (50-85) snapped a four-game losing streak and ended the trip with a 2-4 record.
“We played a good baseball game today, a clean baseball game,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “We talk a lot about how playing clean gives us the best chance to win and we threw strikes.”
Martínez, hoping to follow up his impressive start from Aug. 28 against the New York Yankees at the Coliseum, faced just one batter over the minimum from the second to the sixth innings after he got out of a first-inning jam.
In the sixth after walking rookie Adley Rutschman, Martínez got Anthony Santander to ground into a 3-5-1 double play. After he caught the throw from Vimael Machín at first base, a fired-up Martínez pumped his fist and spiked the ball into the infield grass.
“He kept the fastball in the (strike) zone,” Kotsay said, “and had enough velocity to make his changeup effective and keep it down below the zone.”
Martínez’s performance matched his effort against the Yankees last Sunday when he struck out a career-high six strikeouts in 5⅓ innings in a 4-1 A’s victory. The outing gave Martínez a chance to remain in the A’s rotation during a road trip in which they started six different pitchers.
“Last time, I made sure to focus on the batter,” Martínez said through a Spanish-language translator. “Just making sure to continue to do that. I’m just focusing more on that rather than the negative outcome. I’m just really happy that things played out this way.”
Now, Martinez will likely get another start next week when the A’s are at home for six games.
With a two-game series with Atlanta Braves upcoming, the A’s have lefty Cole Irvin starting Tuesday and rookie Ken Waldichuk going Wednesday, taking Kaprielian’s spot in the rotation.
Kaprielian struggled in August, going 1-4 with a 5.59 ERA in six starts. In that stretch, he had 23 strikeouts to go with 17 walks, as his season record slipped to 3-9.
Perhaps this is an opportunity for Kaprielian to rediscover his mojo after he went 8-5 last season with a 4.07 ERA. Plus, the A’s could use some bullpen reinforcement with Zach Jackson out for at least another week or so with right shoulder inflammation.
Oakland had two blown saves Thursday in its 7-5, 10-inning loss to the Washington Nationals, and had four blown saves in their last 14 games before Sunday. The A’s bullpen before Sunday had the third-highest opponents’ OPS in the American League (.713).
Kaprielian warmed up in the late innings but didn’t enter the game as A.J. Puk worked a scoreless ninth.
The A’s took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on a Sheldon Neuse single that scored Brown from second base on a head-first slide.
After Langeliers’ two-RBI single in the third inning, Brown hit his first home run in the sixth inning off Orioles starter Spenser Watkins. Brown’s second homer, in the eighth inning off Nick Vespi, traveled 397 feet and wound up on Eutaw Street behind the right field wall.
Brown snapped a 25-game homerless drought and now has a team-high 19 home runs this season. His last homer before Sunday came Aug. 7 against the Giants.
“Martinez threw really, really well, and (the Orioles) have a lot of arms in the bullpen,” Brown said. “Putting a good game together against those guys is definitely a good feeling.”
LAUREANO UPDATE: It appears outfielder Ramón Laureano will return this week after a short rehab assignment with Low-A Stockton.
Laureano, on the injured list since Aug. 15 with a strained left oblique, was 2-for-8 with two singles in his first two games with Stockton since the rehab assignment began Thursday. He played right field Saturday after a day off and went 0-for-4, and was slated to be the Ports’ designated hitter Sunday night in their game with San Jose.
Kotsay said the team will assess how Laureano is feeling after the weekend. Oakland has the day off Monday and after its series with the Braves, hosts the Chicago White Sox for a four-game set.
Laureano is hitting .223 with a .695 OPS and 29 RBIs in 84 games this season. The A’s are 9-11 in his absence.
Originally published at Curtis Pashelka