Oakland Athletics: Ushering in the Jesús Luzardo Era, pitch by pitch

Eighth Inning

At this point, anything extra the A’s could get out of the Jesús Luzardo debut was a massive win. The expectation was that Luzardo could go multiple innings out of the pen, but there was still some understanding that other names might need to be called upon to set up for Liam Hendriks.

At 29 pitches, Luzardo was taking the mound against the heart of the order. Yusmeiro Petit got up in the bullpen and threw some pitches in case anything went awry, but it would likely be Luzardo’s inning at least through the lefty at-bat of Yordan Alvarez.

Alex Bregman would be the first man up in the inning, and Luzardo would promptly snap off a slider down and in to paint the corner. A 95-mph two seamer off the plate would have Bregman offer at it, sending a routine grounder to Semien for the out.

Yordan Alvarez was up next.

Despite the lefty-lefty matchup that Bob Melvin loves so much for his pitchers, Alvarez is no walk in the park for lefties. He’s still sporting an OPS over 1.000 against southpaws.

The power-versus-power matchup of the night was on. The train conductor was getting ready to whip out the orange vinyl to commemorate another third-deck seat pelted by a longball.

But Jesús Luzardo wasn’t backing down.

First pitch, Luzardo would paint the outside corner with a sizzling 97 mph two-seamer that Alvarez had no shot of making contact with even if he saw it. He’d go back to the well but just miss with a similar pitch just off the plate.

With a third straight two-seamer, Luzardo created more weak contact that resulted in a grounder right into the shift. Location might not seem as ideal for this pitch, but the movement was, again, wicked, and had Alvarez looking like he got jammed.

Aledyms Diaz strolled to the plate again, hoping for better results than his last plate appearance where he played the role of victim.

He took a rip at Luzardo’s two-seam offering that busted in on the hands and was fouled back. With swing mode activated, Luzardo threw another heater with movement off the plate and got Diaz to bounce into another groundout.

Seven straight retired since the home run. A seven-pitch inning for Luzardo.