A's lose 1-12 to Blue Jays: 80 games in, 40 games below .500

There are only two things set in stone by and for the Oakland Athletics these days: Tony Kemp hitting bangers and the A's losing games.

The A's wrapped up their road trip with another loss north of the border dropping Sunday's series finale in Toronto 1-12 and making it all a 1-2 series loss through the weekend they spent on Canadian soil.

Oakland has lost 10 of their last 11 games with just one win to open the series against the Blue Jays breaking what could have been an impeccable 11-for-11 in the loss column. Prior to this putrid run of results, though, the A's were on a monster seven-game winning streak that came to an end following the Reverse Boycott game back on June 13.

Tony Kemp was the lone bright light on the Athletics side of things on Sunday, with the veteran batting ninth in the lineup but scoring the lone run for the A's with a home run (his third this season) in the sixth inning off Toronto's starter Yusei Kikuchi.

The A's were already down four runs when Kemp rounded the bases, pretty much having already surrendered the game to the Jays by then.

Rookie Luis Medina (1-7) took the mound from the get-go for your Athletics and while he wasn't horrid, the truth is that he ended up allowing four runs on four hits (including one HR) while walking seven batters through five full innings in which he threw 90 total pitches. One of those was hella wild, allowing former A's player Matt Chapman to put a 4-0 on the board.

It took Blue Jays' George Springer two pitches to hit a lead-off homer that put Toronto one up and gave them a lead they'll never give up through the full outing. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. blasted a single deep into center field that ended up with the second run added to the scoreboard after a fielding error committed by phenom Esteury Ruiz.

All things considered, this was a horrible game no matter how optimistic you want to be. Even if you remove Toronto's five-run eighth inning from the box score, you still have a 1-7 defeat that is hardly excusable. The Jays put up at least one run in all but two innings played. They went for 2, 1, 1, nil, nil, one, 2, and 5 runs in order.

The A's can thank Kemp for at least scoring one all by himself. In fact, Kemp has been one of the very few reasons to keep (a few) fans paying attention to the A's on-field endeavors of late.

Kemp had a terrible start to the season with a wRC+ of 42 in Mar/Apr and an even worse 25-figure in May. In June, though, he's keeping up a ridiculous 170 wRC+ while hitting 2 HRs, scoring 11 runs, walking six times, and striking out just twice.

In the 10 games played started on June 15, Kemp has logged 11 hits to go with a stolen base while walking 14.3 percent of the time and striking out at a tiny 2.9% clip. The wRC+ of 226 is just unheard of, as is the ridiculous .393/.500/.643 slash line he's put together with only four games still to be played this month.

The A's threw Ken Waldichuk in to start the sixth and the lad pitched 2.1 innings allowing six runs on six hits walking one batter and striking out four.

Yacksel Rios was tasked with removing the final two Jays from the plate but before he did that he also allowed a couple of runs on a single hit (a homer, because why not) walking one and striking out another Jay. Rios is currently boasting an extraordinary 32.40 ERA on the season since he got signed by the A's on June 18.

Day off for the A's on Monday as they return from Canada to the comfortable confines of Oakland. The kids will be doing it again on Tuesday when they'll open a six-day homestand through which they'll face the New York Yankees first followed by the Chicago White Sox next weekend.

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