A's lose 7-3 to Red Sox: Did Luis Medina really struggle?

The Oakland Athletics, misteriously, failed to win the opener in a series for the first time in fiveruns at an opponent.

The A's lost 7-3 to Boston in their first matchup before the All-Star break after having defeated the Blue Jays, the Yankees, the White Sox, and the Tigers in the first game of the last four series they'd played before this one.

Oakland used an opener for the first time in a minute deploying Sam Long before throwing rookie Luis Medina to the proverbial wolves. Medina, although allowing four runs on seven hits, still put on a kinda-solid outing as he went on to retire nine hitters via strikeout while only conceding one walk on the day.

Long pitched halfway through the second inning and left the game with the scoreboard still locked into a no-runs tie but with three runners on base for Medina to deal with. Of course, the rookie couldn't help himself and although the forced Connor Wong to strikeout swinging, he then proceeded to concede a one-out, two-run single to Yu Chang that put Boston up 2-0.

After a wild pitch, a couple of singles, a forceout, and finally a strikeout coming from Adam Duvall, Media hit the dugout with the rest of his teammates to put an end to the second frame with the A's already down five runs. That was it for your superheroes on a dreadful Friday that could have very well been called then and there.

It took Rafael Devers to throw a wildly wild ball toward first base for Tony Kemp to reach with a single. That happened in the top of the 5th, allowing Seth Brown to put the first green run up in the scoreboard. Already in the seventh, the same Brown would hit the lone bomb on Oakland's side, a one-run homer to make it all 5-3 and give the A's reasonable hopes of pulling off the comeback.

Only, the boys scored no more runs while Boston kept pilling them on.

Angel Felipe, who the A's added to their organization just a few days ago, was called into action late in Friday's affair making his official debut in the majors. No joke!

Felipe was actually extraordinary. He pitched one full inning retiring all three batters he faced before calling it a day in a 1-2-3 type of outing. He even got to bag his first MLB strikeout in his debut something not all pitchers making it to The Show for a cup of coffee can say they did.

The A's got a double serving of bad news, as not only did Oakland dropped this game but were also forced to put rookie outfielder and MLB's base-stealing leader Esteury Ruiz in the 10-day IL for an unknown period going forward. Sheesh.

Boston. Oakland. Second game of the series. Saturday night inside Fenway Park. Don't miss it.

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