The club wrapped up its weekend series with the Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon, falling to their AL East rivals by a final of 8-4 and finishing off the four-game sweep of the Athletics.

A’s strike first

The Athletics came out in the first inning looking determined to get the win today. A leadoff walk to Lawrence Butler and a Jacob Wilson single got the rally started for the club against Blue Jays starting pitcher Kevin Gausman, and Tyler Soderstrom cashed in a run with a productive out:

That gave the team their first lead of the day. In his next at-bat later in the game Soderstrom would get ejected for arguing balls and strikes with the home plate ump. You be the judge:

From there the A’s kept up the pressure but failed to capitalize on a few chances in the first half of the game. Both Wilson and Denzel Clarke collected stolen bases (in Clarke’s case his first career swipe) but Gausman got some big strikeouts in key spots.

The Athletics managed to break through against the veteran Jays right-hander again in the fifth. Back-to-back hits from Wilson and Brent Rooker plus a sacrifice bunt put two runners in scoring position. After a fielder’s choice nabbed Wilson trying to score second baseman Luis Urias came through with a huge two-out double to expand the lead for the team:

Big bounce back from Sears

Looking for a bounce back from his worst career start last time out, left-hander JP Sears got the nod for the 12th time this season. The third-year starter came out of this game looking like a different pitcher than last time out. Through the first four innings Sears only allowed four hits, one in each frame. He also punched out three Jays batters without issuing any free passes.

After getting an expanded lead the Blue Jays finally started to make better contact against Sears. Two hits and a hit batter helped Toronto get on the board for the first time in the fifth and a double off the bat of catcher Alejandro Kirk doubled the lead. The Jays got greedy though and it killed their rally as George Springer got caught at third trying to grab an extra base.

Sears wasn’t as sharp as he was to start this game but he still managed to finish the frame, which ended up being his final one of the day.

-JP Sears: 5 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 84 pitches

Though he probably had more left in the tank it was probably best for the team to get him out of there and not let a quality start spiral out of control. He managed to lower his ERA to 5.05 and will look to get it below 5 in his next start against the Baltimore Orioles.

The A’s added on an insurance run in the top of the eighth when Wilson hit a sacrifice fly that was deep enough to bring in Willie MacIver from third:

Bullpen lets lead slip away

Mitch Spence was first out of the bullpen and looked good for a pair of scoreless innings. That brought us to the bottom of the eighth with just six outs to go to snap the losing streak. Next up was right-hander Justin Sterner. After starting the season with 18 scoreless relief appearances he’s begun looking more human. Today wasn’t his day as the Blue Jays were all over him from the jump. Without collecting a single out Sterner allowed four runs, including a lead-changing three run homer to Addison Barger. Manager Mark Kotsay pulled him after allowing a double but his replacement Grant Holman didn’t have much better luck as he allowed a pair of runs himself. By the time the smoke cleared and the inning was over the Blue Jays had turned a 4-2 deficit into an 8-4 lead with three outs to go. The A’s went down without a fight in the top of the ninth going down 1-2-3 to end this game, series, and road trip.

The issues in the bullpen continue to cause problems for the A’s and there isn’t any obvious answer to the unit’s struggles. The only two relievers with sub4 ERA’s are Tyler Ferguson and Hogan Harris. That’s just not going to cut it and the team needs to figure out an answer or they’re going to continue seeing the relievers throw away games. Sears pitched well in his bounce back start while AL ROTY leader Jacob Wilson went 4-for-4 and is hitting an incredible .357 on the season.

To add injury to insult the club also got bit by the injury bug when Miguel Andujar strained his oblique and looks like to require an IL trip:

Kotsay said Andujar will “most likely” head to the IL, though they will wait for the tests tomorrow before making a decision.

— Martín Gallegos (@MartinJGallegos) June 1, 2025

The team is now 23-37 as they head home back to Sacramento to begin a nice long home stand. They’ll hope to snap this six-game losing streak as soon as possible. The Minnesota Twins await them to begin a four-game series tomorrow evening at Sutter Health Park. Luis Severino will get the ball for the Athletics while the Twins will counter with Joe Ryan. Looks like a good pitching matchup on paper.