Joyce's 20th Homer Can't Help A's Solve Their Offensive Woes

ANAHEIM - In the one-step-forward, two-steps-back world that's been the A's season, they've never really been able to springboard off a good stretch of play and parlay it into something bigger.

Coming off a three-game sweep of Texas, the A's hit the road and have gone flat against another Wild Card contender. They lost their second in a row to the Angels on Tuesday, an 8-2 decision in which the ending was given away before the opening credits had even finished rolling.

The Angels jumped on Oakland starter Chris Smith for five runs in the first, and that was a deficit the A's hit-and-miss offense couldn't battle back from.

Their power game was intact, as Matt Joyce and Matt Olson each went deep in the second inning. The A's entered the night having scored 48 percent of their runs via the long ball, which is on pace to break the Oakland record of 46.3 percent in 1996.

But they're coming up dry when it comes to sustained rallies, the kind where they link hits together with men on base and keep innings rolling. Over their past 12 games, the A's are now 15-for-86 (.174) with runners in scoring position.

They had the bases loaded with two outs in the third, but Joyce popped out. The next inning, they advanced another runner to third with two outs, but Chad Pinder, pinch-hitting for Boog Powell against former Athletic Jesse Chavez, took a called third strike at the knees.

"That series against Texas we were executing," Olson said. "You saw we went out and played good baseball against a good team. The little things add up. We just need to focus in those big situations."

Added A's manager Bob Melvin: "Our guys understand the situation, we're just in a little bit of a rut as far as (the execution)."

In dropping the first two of this three-game set, the A's fell to 3-16-2 in road series this season. But they did have a couple positives to cling to.

Joyce's second-inning smash to right gave him 20 homers for the first time in his 10-year career. Two batters later, Olson added another solo shot to right, his 10th of the season.

In Olson, Matt Chapman and Pinder, the A's have three rookies with 10 or more homers for only the second time in their Oakland history. It also happened in 1977 with Wayne Gross, Mitchell Page and Tony Armas.

Smith, still winless in eight starts with the A's, was down on himself for allowing the five-run first. But he's able to salvage a little bit of joy in watching the young trio, and some of the other components of the A's talented young core, continuing to develop.

Smith, a 36-year-old journeyman who once walked away from the game when he thought his career was over, has spent good chunks of the past two seasons playing with many of those young players at Triple-A Nashville.

"Some of these young guys are pretty special in my household," Smith said. "Playing with them the last two years, my daughters, that's their favorite guys out there. You've got Chapman, Olson, Pinder, Bruce (Maxwell), (Ryon) Healy, the guys that are the fan favorites in our house. They just think it's special that their Dad gets to play with those guys. … When I see them on the field, I tell them all the time they're special players."

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