The A’s launched three late-game home runs to account for all their runs in applying a 5-4 defeat on the Reds, Cincinnati’s ninth straight interleague home loss.
Down 5-1 in the eighth, the Reds scored a run in the eighth and two in the ninth to pull within one run and had runners on second and third with two outs.
Oakland’s premiere closer, Mason Miller, gave up four hits in the ninth, but he struck out pinch-hitter Amed Rosario on a full count with a 102 mph fastball.
The A’s hit a pair of two-run home runs in the seventh by Mike Schuemann and Lawrence Butler and a solo shot by Zack Gelof in the eighth.
Neither the Reds (63-69) nor the A’s (57-75) are going anywhere after the regular season except to golf clubhouses, hunting lodges or fishing boats, but both played this game as if it were the seventh game of the World Series.
Before the game, Nick Lodolo was placed on the injured list (sprained middle finger) to give the Reds a clean sweep of injured starting pitchers.
The beginning of the season starting rotation is totally absent with Lodolo, Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott and Graham Ashcraft on the injured list and Frankie Montas traded.
So once again manager David Bell and staff were forced to make it another Bullpen Day.
And for four innings, it worked to perfection. Starter Jakob Junis pitched four perfect innings, 12 up and 12 down.
Even though Junis needed only 43 pitches and was fooling the A’s, he had not gone that far this season and Bell decided that was enough.
The Reds grabbed a 1-0 lead in the fourth when A’s starter Mitch Spence walked Tyler Stephenson and Spencer Steer and Ty France blooped a run-scoring single to right.
It was a frustrating night at home plate for the Reds. They stranded 12 runners and were 2 for 13 with runners in scoring position. They stranded two in the fourth, two in the sixth, three in the eighth and two in the ninth.
It stood 1-0 when Junis turned the perfect game over to Buck Farmer in the fifth. He gave up a one-out walk to end the perfect game but nothing else came of it.
The A’s loaded the bases against Farmer and Sam Moll in the sixth. With two outs Tony Santillan came on to strike out Shea Langeliers to keep it at 1-0.
Then came the fatal seventh.
Santillan walked Seth Brown, and with two outs No. 8 hitter Schuemann punched a 341-foot two-run home run just inside the right field foul pole for a 2-1 A’s lead.
When Jacob Wilson singled, Justin Wilson replaced Santillan and his fifth pitch to Butler traveled 100 feet farther than Schuemann’s homer, 441 feet, but it counted the same. Two more runs and a 4-1 lead.
The third home run came in the eighth inning, a 424-foot shot by Gelof against Casey Legumina that made it 5-1.
The Reds scored a run in the eighth when Tyler Ferguson walked in a run with two outs. Ross Stripling arrived to induce a ground ball from Noelvi Marte to leave the bases loaded and a 5-2 Reds deficit.
And the Reds more than threatened in the ninth against Miller, he of the 100 mph-plus pitches.
Elly De La Cruz singled and took third on Stephenson’s third single, extending his hitting streak to 11 games.
De La Cruz scored on a ground ball by TJ Friedl and Spencer Steer pushed his hitting streak to nine games with a run-scoring single.
And it was 5-4 with the potential tying run on first. Ty France lined a double to left that Daz Cameron cut off quickly, forcing Steer to stop at third.
That put the potential tying run on third and the winning run on second. Pinch-hitter Amed Rosario worked the count to 3-and-2 and struck out on a Miller fastball.
And another late comeback fell short and the Reds suffered another one-run defeat and are 10-24 in one-run affairs.
There was one negative incident that has plagued the Reds all season — the run on contact play from third base.
Friedl tripled to open the second. De La Cruz grounded to short and Friedl stayed put. But when France grounded sharply to short, Friedl burst homeward and Jacob Wilson threw him out from here to there.
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