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OAKLAND – Cal Quantrill was not his best player on Saturday. He struggled to consistently find the area; most of the rounds were a stressful business. But at the end of it all, he’s had a pretty good day at the office himself.
Quantrill had five innings in Cleveland’s 3-2 win over the A’s at Oakland Coliseum, repeatedly scrambling to keep Oakland’s roster at one point. The mid-season transition from reliever to starter hasn’t been easy, but with each outing, Quantrill becomes more and more comfortable.
“He gave one in the first and then kept them off the scoreboard,” manager Terry Francona said. “It wasn’t easy all the time, but he did it. He competed like crazy.
Quantrill has a lot of experience as a starter, dating back to his time in San Diego, but he was mainly used in relief during his time in Cleveland. He’s got used to life in the bullpen and excelled in that role earlier in the year, posting a 2.03 ERA in his first 17 relief appearances. When transitioning to rotation at the end of May, Quantrill had to adapt on the fly.
Starting the games sounded familiar to me, but the transition was choppy. Quantrill described his first month as a starter as a grind. The routine that worked for him as a reliever didn’t translate as well to begin with. In his first six starts, he posted a 7.22 ERA. Quantrill needed to rediscover what worked for him, and lately he seems to have done it.
“I think we’ve really committed these last three, four starts, going through a starting routine, getting ready to start, not having the fear of going back to the pen,” said Quantrill, who has a 3 ERA. 91 in his last three starts. “It’s better. I feel like we got a better approach. We got better and had better throws.
While Quantrill pitched better as a starter, Saturday’s outing was grueling. Quantrill wasn’t particularly sharp, often missing the treble or the outside – or both – with some of his throws. He threw 48 shots at 37 balls and ran into several three-ball counts. Still, Quantrill has managed to make his way through the tough spots.
No jam was stickier than that encountered by Quantrill in the fifth round. To start the frame, Tony Kemp hit a single down the infield. Next, Quantrill placed Aramis Garcia and Mark Canha with back-to-back throws to charge the bases with no takedowns and the heart of the order due. Despite the low odds, Quantrill got by without a scratch.
The first hitter to face was Elvis Andrus, who tormented Cleveland for over a decade.
Entering the game, Andrus had a batting average of .371 against Cleveland – the highest score against any opponent in the shortstop’s career. Andrus had already totaled three hits against the Tribe on Friday and was tied on Jed Lowrie’s two-run homerun. That’s all to say that Andrus was one of the worst hitters to face in the high leverage situation.
Quantrill left a slider in the zone for Andrus, but the shortstop ended in a rare 5-2-3 double play, putting the runners in second and third with two outs. With an open base, Quantrill wanted nothing to do with Matt Olson and ran the All-Star five lengths.
On his last throw of the afternoon, Quantrill left another slider in the strike zone, but Mitch Moreland narrowly missed the sweet spot, soaring to central court and ending the threat and, by extension, to the afternoon of Quantrill.
“That’s probably why we took him out of the game,” Francona said. “I thought he had expended so much energy to get by that it was probably about time.”
From there, the bullpen kept the fort going, not without more drama at the end of the round.
With less than 24 hours of Lowrie’s home run against Emmanuel Clase, the As threatened to start again, this time against James Karinchak. Oakland tackled Karinchak in the ninth inning thanks to Sean Murphy’s sacrificial volley, but with a two-point lead before frame, the Cleveland late-inning specialist managed to slam the door and lock the win.
Clase had a good rebound after giving Lowrie the two-run home run on Friday night, taking the team out in the eighth inning with two strikeouts.
“I was really happy for Emmanuel,” Francona said. “I was hoping we would get him back there today and thought it was good for him.”
Quantrill also expressed his confidence in the bullpen, saying: “There is [are] no guy I’d rather follow me than what we have right now. “
While he’s no longer a part of that unit locking down the last few rounds, his transition to rotation is starting to pay off.
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