Bido evens up Toronto series with stellar outing

The righty had his best major league start yet, spinning six shutout innings against Toronto.

Following a narrow loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday, the Oakland Athletics returned the favor with 1-0 shutout, led by emerging starter Osvaldo Bido.

Already 28 years old, Bido joined the A’s this past offseason quite quietly after being granted free agency by his first major league team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Despite signing a major league contract, the righty still had options left, spending most of the first half at Triple-A with the Las Vegas Aviators. He pitched well enough to earn a callup for a May 8 doubleheader as the 26th man and game two starter but couldn’t make it through the outing due to a middle finger blister.

A month-and-a-half later, he got called back up for a more extended run with the major league squad and now, after a few appearances out of the bullpen and a trio of starts, the sophomore pitched the best start of his career. Facing a middle-of-the-pack Toronto offense, Bido shut their hitters down for six quality innings, having easily the best outing of his career.

Throughout those six innings, Bido racked up five strikeouts, wielding his wide-ranging pitch mix to keep hitters off balance. The Blue Jays were only able to get four baserunners on his watch: two hits, a single walk, and a hit by pitch.

Fortunately, Bido was rewarded with the narrowest of win decisions. In the top half of his final inning, Brent Rooker did his Brent Rooker thing, skying a first-pitch 85 mph slider high to left field and bouncing it off the top of the wall. Having not fully cleared the wall, the umpires originally ruled it a double but upon review, the call was overturned, a solo homerun was awarded, and the A’s grabbed hold of a 1-0 lead.

Shea Langeliers also stood out on offense, having a 4-for-4 night. Meanwhile, in the bullpen, Scott Alexander and Tyler Ferguson bridged the gap nicely to All-Star Mason Miller, who recently returned from the IL. The rookie closer, in his second outing back, walked Daulton Varsho but struck out the other three batters with just 12 pitches and earned his 17th save of the season.

The series is now evened up with the rubber match set for tomorrow. It’ll be a strong pitching matchup between current and former A’s staff leaders, JP Sears and Chris Bassitt.