OAKLAND - The Oakland A’s starting pitching has been in a funk all year, and the man at the head of the class, Sonny Gray, continues to struggle in ways he’s never struggled before.
Gray was hammered for seven runs in five innings Thursday, and other than one swing from center fielder Jake Smolinski, the A’s offense was nowhere to be found in a series-opening 7-3 loss to Tampa Bay.
From the time he came up midway through 2013 to the end of the 2015 season, Gray had started 74 times for the A’s and had allowed seven runs just twice. He’s made 18 starts this year, and Thursday was the fourth time he’s allowed seven runs in a game.
His career ERA had never been over 3.28 at any point in his first 2½ seasons. That and his innate combativeness make him a natural fit at the Aug. 1 trade deadline for any contender looking for starting rotation help.
Teams are still interested, if the half-dozen or so scouts at the game Thursday might attest, but the price they’re willing to pay has almost certainly taken a tumble with Gray unable to get out of a season-long funk.
He ended April at 3.81 and hasn’t been under 5.12 since the start of May. It sits at 5.49 now, and the A’s aren’t sure what the problem is. There was a brief renaissance in early June when he came off the disabled list when he allowed three runs in his first two starts. But he has floundered since.
And if the A’s don’t have Gray at the top of their rotation as the stopper, and if nine-game winner Rich Hill is dealt away before the trade deadline, the final two months of the A’s season could be a slog for the rotation.
Having started the season with four consecutive quality starts, Gray hasn’t had more than two in succession since. He’d allowed one run and three runs in a pair of six-inning starts his last two times out, but the start before that was a six-inning, seven-run effort against the Pirates, and then came Thursday night.
An RBI single from Corey Dickerson in the first and a solo homer by Tim Beckham in the second staked Tampa Bay to a 2-0 lead, but Smolinski’s three-run homer in the bottom of the second gave the A’s and Gray a 3-2 lead. Two innings later Dickerson homered, tying the game, and things began to change.
The Rays opened the fifth inning with five consecutive hits, and by the time Dickerson capped the inning with his third RBI on a sacrifice fly, Tampa Bay had four more runs and control of the game.
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