All it takes is one bad break for the floodgates to open in any baseball game and that's what happened to Athletics starter Ken Waldichuk on Sunday.
In the A's 6-0 loss to the Los Angeles Angels at the Oakland Coliseum, the 25-year-old seemingly was cruising heading into the fourth inning.
Then, the proverbial floodgates burst.
A single by Hunter Renfroe led to an error by A's catcher Shea Langeliers, which was followed by a Luis Rengifo walk. Los Angeles catcher Logan O'Hoppe seized the moment with a three-run blast and suddenly, Oakland was down 3-0.
"Yeah, I've come up playing against him so I had a plan against him, he had a plan against me and he just executed on that pitch," Waldichuk told reporters after the game.
Before O'Hoppe's three-run home run, Waldichuk and Langeliers had an opportunity to limit the damage after Renfroe hit a weak dribbler down the first base line. Sliding to get to the ball in time, Langeliers threw the ball, hitting Renfroe's helmet and allowing the Angels outfielder to advance to second.
Oakland Athletics
"Yeah, it was just a weird play, how the ball was spinning," Waldichuk continued. "I didn't think it would go as far as it did or else I would have tried to field it.
"I kind of look at it as an opportunity to kind of get out of it, get some momentum for us. And I wasn't able to do that."
A's manager Mark Kotsay recalled what transpired in that fourth inning, saying it was a "tough" play for Langeliers and that he threw an "uncatchable ball."
"Those are the innings where you need a strikeout, need Ken to really step up and help out the defense," Kotsay told reporters after the loss. "Unfortunately, we weren't able to shut that down but really the fifth inning, the third time through is where they got a good look at him and [Taylor] Ward singles, obviously [Mike] Trout goes deep and [Shohei] Ohtani and the next thing you know, you're down six."
Speaking of the fifth inning, that's when Los Angeles' stars shined as Ward, Trout and Ohtani combined for three hits, two home runs, to knock Waldichuk out of the game.
Waldichuk departed after throwing 5 2/3 innings, giving up nine hits, six earned runs, and one walk while striking out four.
"Two home runs is two home runs," Kotsay added. "It doesn't matter how far they go, if they just creep over the wall.
"It's a momentum changer in the game by any measure and we weren't able to bounce back from it."
Meanwhile, Waldichuk calls the pitches he threw to Trout and Ohtani as "mistakes," and gave the duo props for hitting the ball as well as they did.
"So they did a good job of getting a bat on ball," the left-hander said. "I don't know if either were really exactly in the zone but definitely not where I intended to put them."
Despite the rough outing, Waldichuk is keeping his head up and believes he can continue working on what he did well Sunday against the Angels (2-1).
"Almost going six was something that I can kind of build off of," Waldichuk added. "Just being able to throw innings. I guess I just have to execute against those guys in the heart of their order, especially in that third time through."
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Oakland (1-2) only is three games into its season and already the team knows what it must fix moving forward in the 2023 MLB season.
And if the A's want to turn things around in the early going, they know they have to limit their mistakes against the Cleveland Guardians on Monday.