Soler homers in return to help Lester, Cubs beat A’s

He’s been on the disabled list with a shoulder strain since June 26.

The Chicago Cubs’ Kyle Hendricks continues to demonstrate why he should not be overlooked when it comes time to debate Cy Young Award candidates in the National League.

Arrieta pitched eight shutout innings and ended his three-game losing streak as the Cubs defeated the Oakland A’s 4-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. He’s got a curveball he buries in the dirt to keep people off his sinker. “They are really good this year”. A’s starter Sonny Gray gave up a pair of runs on five hits through five innings to absorb the loss with Liam Hendricks allowing two runs in an inning. “(Melvin) made a decision to shut it down instead of risking me hurting anything else”.

Oakland’s 2014 season went south after that trade, however, and many fans point to the Lester deal as the start of the A’s woes.

“I’m watching them out there from the very first pitch. they’re engaged, they’re present-tense, ready to go”, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. He’ll try to end that skid Saturday afternoon against the Oakland A’s in the second game of a three-game series at the Oakland Coliseum.

Hendricks tossed 7 1/3 innings of three-hit ball in the Cubs’ 3-1 win over the Athletics on Sunday.

The game was also the second straight in which former members of the A’s organization came back to haunt the team. Ben Zobrist led off with a double and Overton hit Russell with a pitch.

A’s hitters, meanwhile, have had little success breaking through in the first two games of this three-game set against the major leagues’ winningest team this season.

It didn’t help that on Saturday he got no run support. Still, that didn’t bother Gray as much as being taken out while he was pitching well.

“I think it was more of an issue for him early on”. “To have it cut short like this is very tough”. The Indians had gone 1-4 in their previous five games, a stretch in which Cleveland starting pitchers produced a 15.58 ERA (30 earned runs in 17 1/3 innings). Schuster has a 1.16 ERA in 38 2/3 innings for the Nashville Sounds, but has allowed eight runs in 4 2/3 innings with Oakland in July.

GIANTS 7, NATIONALS 1: At Washington, Eduardo Nunez got four hits, including two triples and a double off Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg, and San Francisco beat Washington. Oakland mustered four hits and a base on balls with Yonder Alonso smacking a double. Semien had an infield hit in the second.

A’s relievers Andrew Triggs, Daniel Coulombe and Marc Rzepczynski combined to allow just three Cubs baserunners from the fourth inning on, but by then, the damage had already been done. “Believe it or not I was actually hitting my spots better tonight”, Overton said.

Baseball’s best team, with the game’s best pitching staff, came into Oakland and made it their own.

Melvin agreed with that assessment before Saturday’s game.

Right fielder Brett Eibner, making his first appearance for the A’s after being acquired from Kansas City for Billy Burns last week, led off the sixth with a home run to left. Jon Lester took a one-hitter into the sixth inning Friday. However, Overton struggled to do the same – the Cubs sat on his pitches, forced him to groove his offerings toward the middle of the plate and feasted on them when he did. “There’s great movement on his pitches”. “He’s just having a hard time up here”. Pedro Strop came on to strike Jake Smolinski out on three straight sliders and retire Ryon Healy on a pop-up.

“I wasn’t feeling any pressure, I just wanted to put a good swing on the ball”, Soler said through an interpreter.