Oakland A’s finish dreadful first half, but focus is on Montas’ health

The Oakland A’s finished one of the most dreadful first halves in their history Sunday, but the focus after their 2-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners was largely on the health of starting pitcher Frankie Montas.

Montas, one of the A’s biggest potential trade chips, left after one inning at T-Mobile Park with tightness in his shoulder and said he will have an MRI after the team returns to Oakland.

Otherwise, the game followed a familiar script.

The A’s, with the worst offense in the majors, had four hits, including an Elvis Andrus home run in the seventh inning, and went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position against Mariners ace Robbie Ray to finish a three-city road trip with a 3-7 record.

The A’s are now 26-55, the second-worst record at the midway point in Oakland history, bettering only the 1979 team that was 23-58 at the halfway mark.

If Oakland duplicates its first-half record in the second half, it’ll lose 110 games, a total not experienced by an A’s team since the 1916 Philadelphia A’s went 36-117. Oakland hosts Toronto for three games starting Monday.

Still, of more immediate concern was the health of Montas, who threw just 13 pitches before he left the game with tightness in the back of his shoulder. One pitch was a 92 mph sinker that Mariners leadoff hitter Julio Rodriguez took over the left-field wall for a 1-0 Seattle lead.

Montas said he didn’t recover well enough after his six-inning outing in New York last Tuesday. With his pitch velocity noticeably down Sunday, he and manager Mark Kotsay believed the best thing was to exit the game and get examined.

“I don’t have any concern,” Montas said. “I don’t think it’s anything bad, just probably some inflammation. Didn’t have enough time to recover (after June 28).”

Montas’ four-seam fastball that’s averaged 96.2 mph this season dipped to an average of 93.8 mph Sunday. He said there’s no issue with his arm.

Asked about his own level of concern for Montas, who, before Sunday, ranked fifth in the American League with 95.2 innings pitched, Kotsay said the A’s will get the shoulder looked at “when we get back to Oakland and then determine the right route for him.”

Montas’ fastball got up to 99 mph on June 23 when he no-hit the Mariners through 7.2 innings at the Coliseum. Montas pitched eight scoreless, but the A’s allowed two runs in the ninth and lost to Seattle 2-1.

That’s been the story of the season for Montas, who is now 3-9 with a 3.26 ERA and 100 strikeouts. Prior to Sunday, he had received one run of support or fewer in each of his last three starts and 10 of his last 11.

Nevertheless, because of his arm, Montas’ name has been bandied about in trade rumors, as teams looked to fortify starting staffs before the Aug. 2 deadline. Montas is under team control for one more year, but a lingering injury could cool trade talks.

Reliever Austin Pruitt kept the A’s in the game. After he took over for Montas, Pruitt retired 12 straight batters from the second to the fifth inning, collecting six strikeouts.

His only blemish was allowing an RBI double to Rodriguez in the sixth inning as the Mariners took a 2-0 lead.

“I knew going into it that I was going to have to cover some innings,” Pruitt said. “From pitch one, I felt pretty good. It kind of brought me back to when I was a starter.”

Oakland managed just three hits in the first six innings against Ray, who finished with 12 strikeouts. Andrus’ home run, his fifth of the season and his fourth this year at T-Mobile Park, got Ray out of the game after 107 pitches.

Entering Sunday, the A’s ranked last in MLB in batting (.213), on-base percentage (.274), slugging percentage (.330), and OPS (.604).

It’s going to take some work for the A’s to avoid finishing with the worst record in Oakland history.

The 1979 team went 31-50 in the second half and finished the season at 54-108, and it remains the only Oakland squad to lose 100 games or more in one year.

So this year’s A’s team will need 37 wins over the final 81 games to avoid the century mark in losses, a difficult task considering they have 29 games left against teams that entered Sunday in a playoff position.

INJURY UPDATES: Kotsay said reliever Dany Jiménez (strained right shoulder) is working on strengthening the shoulder but does not have a day as to when he’ll start to throw. Jiménez has been on the injured list since June 19.

Kotsay said Jonah Bride, too, is still working on strengthening his strained right shoulder and there remains no timeline to start baseball activity. Bride was placed on the IL on June 27.