Major League Baseball

A's were happy to reward dominant Chavez with runs, victory

Published Jun. 1, 2015 5:37 p.m. ET

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Jesse Chavez has been somewhat of a 'tough-luck loser' this season for the Oakland Athletics.

On the year, he has earned a sterling 2.11 ERA across eight starts for the A's, yet his record is just 2-5. 

A growing trend so far in 2015 has been his club's inability to score runs when he's on the mound, as was the case last week when he pitched eight innings without allowing an earned run to the Detroit Tigers. He lost 1-0, however, as an unearned run matched with a zero from the A's offense combined to waste an otherwise excellent start.

As a result, the A's were happy to see Chavez on the winning side of things on Sunday, when he blanked the New York Yankees for eight frames en route to the A's 3-0 win.

A's catcher Stephen Vogt, perhaps on his way to the All-Star Game, summed up the club's mindset with Chavez tossing shutout inning after shutout inning with this quote to MLB.com's Trevor Hass: 

"I was sitting there in the fifth, thinking, 'We have not scored any runs for this guy all year. We knew today all we needed was one run. That's the kind of day it was for him on the mound."

And though Chavez himself didn't admit any frustration from the A's seeming inability to score him any runs, manager Bob Melvin did acknolwedge that it can negatively affect a pitcher: "It wears on you. You keep going out there knowing you have to put up zeros, and you have to keep your focus and it makes you that much more locked in to what you're doing, but the two-run homer felt like a five-run homer, and certainly adding on another run was big. He's pitched so well that it's great that we can finally reward him."

For an A's club looking for any reason to get on a 'hot streak', considering their rough first two months, finally getting Chavez back in the win column would be a start. 

(h/t MLB.com)

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