Sweep slips through Cardinals' fingers in Oakland as they fall to 0-6 in series finales

Blackburn’s ERA escaped unchanged.

That was not the case in the fourth inning. More than 22 innings into his season, Blackburn allowed his first runs of the season when three consecutive Cardinals connected for base hits. Nootbaar stung a single to right. He took off for second as Nolan Arenado did the same. The first two doubles from Willson Contreras scored Nootbaar, and then Ivan Herrera claimed a lead for the Cardinals with his two-run single up the middle. Contreras scored the run on his fellow catcher’s hit for a 3-2 lead.

McFarland keeps Cardinals grounded

In the sixth inning, Contreras led off with his second double of the game for his second two-double game of the series. That gave the Cardinals a quick chance to respond with a rally. It faltered on two ground balls before the A’s ever went to their ground-ball specialist.

Contreras took third on a ground-out, and when Herrera followed with another ground ball to shortstop, his fellow catcher did not break for home on contact.

He didn’t go when the shortstop flung the ball to first.

A run that would have cut the Athletics’ lead in half instead remained at third base. That helped Oakland make the call to pitch around Masyn Winn and get lefty and ground-ball-getter T.J. McFarland into the game. The Cardinals had a counter for their former lefty reliever — though the trends lined up for the A’s. The Cardinals pinch-hit Jordan Walker for Michael Siani. That gave them the right-handed bat against McFarland’s left-handed delivery, but Oakland benefited from getting one of the best ground-ball relievers against one of the hitters with the highest ground-ball rate.

Walker drilled a ground ball to third to end the inning.

Missteps widen A’s lead

Contreras’ choice not to break from third and see where the inning went was the first of two missteps in the same inning that helped Oakland widen its lead. In the bottom of the sixth, Nolan Gorman lost control of a ball at second base and was unable to attempt a double play that would have ended the inning. That allowed A’s leadoff hitter Ruiz to reach first on the force-out.

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