A’s Miller ‘bounced back’ for quality outing in loss to Angels originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
After a quality MLB debut, Athletics rookie starting pitcher Mason Miller had to face Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani.
While Oakland fell 5-3 to the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night at Angel Stadium, the A’s did see Miller show resilience after a rough first inning.
The 24-year-old surrendered four earned runs to start the contest but recovered nicely in the innings that followed. Miller pitched four frames and struck out six Angels batters.
“You know, [the Angels] did a good job identifying kind of where Mason was locating the baseball,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay told reporters postgame. “If you saw in that first, you know, most of the hits were to right field, Mason made an adjustment, and, you know, obviously, he had a high pitch count getting out of that first inning with 38 [pitches]I think.
“So that was stressful in every way for us, a young arm on the mound and trying to get him through that, and then he bounced back and gave us four innings. So you got to be impressed. The positive there is that he settled in and went three scoreless. So we talked about his process and what to learn from what to take from this game, but overall, it’s not a terrible outing.”
The right-hander might have taken the loss in the game, but the contest served as a learning experience for Miller, who understands that at the major league level, there are some pitches he will not be able to get past batters.
“I think I was confident in my pitches that I threw there, but these guys are professional hitters, so a lot of stuff maybe I was able to get away with before, it’s not going to be able to be the case now,” Miller told reporters postgame.
“So just getting inside, making guys a little uncomfortable so they can’t sit on something that I want to throw to.”
RELATED: Shintaro Fujinami shifts to Athletics bullpen after rough start to MLB career
The A’s might be getting a look at their rotation of the future as they will count on another rookie pitcher for Wednesday night’s game against the Angels as Luis Medina makes his MLB debut.