The A’s took the first game of their weekend series against the Angels on Friday night, winning in Anaheim by a 9-3 final to make it two in a row for the Green & Gold. The club won its 40th game tonight and remains just a game and a half back of the Mariners in the division.
The first four innings
The offense did not show up at all through the first four frames in tonight’s game. Facing the Angels’ top young starting pitcher Walbert Urena, the A’s went down 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 in this one (four perfect innings).
On the bright side of things, the A’s had their own young rising ace in J.T. Ginn on the mound tonight. While he wasn’t as perfect as his counterpart, Ginn did his job with three scoreless innings in going toe-to-toe with his mound opponent.
Los Angeles did strike first tonight. A double and passed ball put an Angels baserunner on third base but with two down all Ginn needed was any sort of soft contact. Alas, a line-drive single plated the first run of the game to give the Angels the first lead of the night.
The fifth inning
That lone run really woke up the A’s bats. After getting perfected for the first four innings the offense got to work against the rookie right-hander that had had their number for the past 15+ innings dating back to his previous two starts.
It all started with, of course, a walk. Followed by a force out at second. Nothing too crazy. Then a walk. Then a single to load the bases, the first domino. Then the hit that gave the A’s the lead, another single from Jeff McNeil:
Then another single from Alika Williams brought in another run to make it 3-1. After him the lineup flipped over and it was lead off man Henry Bolte’s turn to get in on the action with his own base knock, this one driving in a pair to make it 5-1 A’s:
Urena’s unraveling continued as Nick Kurtz followed Bolte with another single to drive home the A’s rookie center fielder. And finally, to cap off the 7-run inning was the likely AL starting catcher Shea Langeliers and he hi his own single to bring home Kurtz:
It was only after that final hit did Halos manager Kurt Suzuki come to get his starting pitcher. Five straight singles was what it took to knock him from this game. The Angels reliever then quickly got the next two outs to escape the frame but the damage was done. A 7-spot to give Ginn plenty of room to go on cruise control.
The Angels did not provide the A’s with a shutdown inning. A single and home run off the bat of Jo Adell cut the lead from 6 to 4, but Ginn was generally in control tonight. He pitched one more inning to put a bow on his performance this evening.
- J.T. Ginn: 6 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 1 HR, 89 pitches
An overall solid night from Ginn as he held the Angels to just three runs. One mistake cost him two off that Adell home run but other than that he more or less held down a Los Angeles lineup that doesn’t have many bats of recognition. He’s set to take a 3.15 ERA into his next scheduled start against the Miami Marlins next Friday.
The final frames
The A’s quickly got back two of those runs in the top of the seventh. Kurtz brought Bolte home on an RBI single, moved to second on a hit from Shea, then came home himself off a ground-rule double from Jonah Heim:
That made it 9-3 with just nine outs to go.
Luis Medina and Hogan Harris combined for a scoreless eighth and ninth. Then, maybe hoping to get him right in a lower pressure situation, Mark Kotsay sent Elvis Alvarado out for the ninth. It was an uneventful 1-2-3 inning to finish off the game, which is probably exactly what Kotsay was hoping for from the young righty reliever. Lock in win #40.
A great win by the A’s tonight. A huge fifth inning against a rookie starting pitcher that had already bested them twice this year was the perfect formula for tonight’s victory. Ginn was of course fantastic with run support and the A’s now have a 2-game winning streak and have started this series off on the right foot.
The series continues tomorrow night. Right-hander Jack Perkins is slated to get the ball for what’ll be his fifth start since joining the rotation. It hasn’t been a smooth or easy transition for the starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter again as he sports a 7.50 ERA in those four starting assignments, the last of which came against these very same Angels last weekend. The A’s will be hoping for better results and who knows how long his leash is if he falters against the Angels tomorrow.
Speaking of Anaheim, they’ll counter the Athletics’ righty with left-hander Reid Detmers, who will be looking to continue a solid season in his own return to starting duties. Overall he’s had a great season but he’s coming off one of his worst starts of the year, when he allowed five runs in six innings of work in an eventual Angels victory in Sacramento. We’ll all be hoping for a better outcome than that, but let’s have more of that offense show up against the lefty!
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