Former Bay Area rivals go head-to-head in West Sacramento, Calif., on Friday night when the San Francisco Giants and Athletics open a three-game interleague series.
The Giants come into the series after a 5-2 road loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night that allowed the defending champs to salvage a split of the four-game series.
Giants manager Tony Vitello chose to see the glass as half-full after his club scored a total of 15 runs in Los Angeles on Monday and Tuesday, before mustering up just two more over the final two games of the series.
“We’ll get out of here 2-2. Anytime you play on the road, if you can be .500 or better, that’s somewhat of a positive,” Vitello said. “The biggest thing at this point is getting over the loss, finding a way to get rest with a late night of travel, and being ready to go (Friday) in a park we’re familiar with.”
The Giants’ familiarity with Sutter Health Park comes from having a Triple-A affiliate in Sacramento, as well as having gone 2-1 last July in the Athletics’ first season away from Oakland.
The Giants will open the series with right-hander Tyler Mahle (1-4, 5.18 ERA) on the mound as he attempts to end a roller-coaster ride of a season.
The first-year Giant has alternated good and bad starts, allowing two or fewer runs four times, and four or more runs four times. He’s coming off one of the bad starts, having served up four runs in 5 2/3 innings in a 7-6, 12-inning home win over the Pittsburgh Pirates last Sunday.
Mahle, 31, has received bad luck in two previous starts against the A’s, going 0-2 with a 1.50 ERA, limiting the A’s to two runs and eight hits over 12 innings.
He’ll encounter an A’s team that was one strike from winning two of three from the St. Louis Cardinals.
That one needed a strike turned into a hit batsman, which was followed by game-tying and go-ahead hits in a two-out, two-run ninth-inning uprising. That allowed the Cardinals to leave town with a 5-4 victory and leave A’s manager Mark Kotsay shaking his head.
“It was a game we should have won,” Kotsay said. “Sometimes we forget how hard this game truly is. It wasn’t for lack of effort.
“We talk about it all the time – you can’t give away free bases (a reference to the hit batsman). You have to make them earn it.”
Right-hander Aaron Civale (4-1, 2.59) will be looking to build upon his career-long success against the Giants when he gets the ball for the A’s in the series opener. He’s gone 3-1 with a 2.05 ERA in five starts against San Francisco.
Civale, 30, allowed one run in 11 total innings to pitch the A’s to wins over the Cleveland Guardians and Baltimore Orioles in his last two starts.
–Field Level Media
