Comebacks galore ends with A’s walk-off walk

Daz, Gelof, and Bleday all had game-tying hits.

It was comebacks galore in Oakland today, as the Athletics pulled off not one, not two, but three late-game comebacks against the Colorado Rockies. The cherry on top was a Tyler Soderstrom, walkoff walk that put the A’s back on a winning track.

Despite a much needed 7-inning effort from rookie starter Joey Estes, the A’s fell into an 0-4 hole with the offense looking as lifeless as usual. The righty went at the Rockies batters, striking out 6 and walking none, but a couple of defensive miscues made his night a lot harder. In the top of the 1st, JJ Bleday casually strolled to catch a soft flyball in center and threw the ball into second base, where Ezequiel Tovar was parked. The throw ended up going high over Zack Gelof and dribbling slowly into the Rockies dugout, giving Tovar an automatic trip home.

Later in the top of the 6th, with runners on first and third, another soft flyball to shallow center seemed to drift into the sun. This caused shortstop Max Schuemann to miss the catch and allow the Rockies third run to score. Neither of these plays was ruled an error — particularly surprising in the former case — but just 10% better execution could’ve led to a much cleaner final line for Estes.

With the A’s down a quadruplet of runs and only a few innings left to play, Schuemann finally got some action going with his own single to center that scored Kyle McCann, who had a 3-hit game. The next inning, with Seth Brown on first, J.D. Davis took a big swing and sent slider down the middle deep to left field, making it a salvageable 4-3 game.

One inning later, with 3 outs left to do damage, the A’s actualized their first comeback of the night. Fresh off a morning callup from Triple-A, outfielder Daz Cameron looked unafraid of the moment, blasting a game-tying solo shot to left, just a few feet behind the landing spot of Davis’ homer. Not bad for someone who hasn’t played in the majors since 2022.

A’s fans aren’t too familiar with Cameron yet, besides the fact that he’s the son of former big leaguer Mike Cameron, but the little hop he made after connecting bat to ball gave a glimpse into the joy he puts into the game.

Contributing to the comeback, at least the possibility of it, relievers Scott Alexander and Michael Kelly gave the bullpen a couple of much-needed, stress-free innings after they combined to throw a ridiculous 9 innings in yesterday’s 12-inning loss. Each of them struck out a pair of batters and kept runners off base the 8th and 9th innings.

With the game now tied 4-4 and going into extras, Mark Kotsay called on his relief ace Mason Miller to get the A’s to the finish line, hopefully unscathed. Going into the outing riding a dominant 15-game scoreless streak, Miller and all of Athletics Nation expected more of the same from the young flamethrower. Unfortunately, we all have our days, and today was Miller’s.

There didn’t seem to be anything severely wrong with Oakland’s closer tonight. He was still throwing his typical 100+ mph fastballs, mixing in a healthy dose of sliders. His command was still there and he was still mostly hitting his spots, outside of a costly wild pitch. But for whatever reason, the Rockies lineup, one of the worst in the league, waited on Miller enough to get relatively hittable pitches. The first of his innings ended with a 5-4 lead for Colorado, which a clutch Zack Gelof RBI single erased quickly in the bottom of the 10th. Second comeback secured.

The next inning was even worse, as a 6-pitch at-bat against Rockies outfielder Jake Cave might’ve broken Miller. After ending the at-bat with an RBI single that scored the ghost runner and put the Rockies back on top, Cave went on to steal second base, move to third on an intentional walk, and then score on the aforementioned wild pitch. Two more hits, one off Brandon Bielak in place of the struggling Miller, put the Rockies up 9-5 and returned them their 4-run lead.

Despite the game seemingly out of reach and opportunities dwindling, Schuemann — who always seems to be in the right place and time for a big hit — got another one, this time sending a double just inside of the left field foul line. The A’s other right-place, right-time utilityman knocked in a run of his own and kept the line moving as they cut it to a 9-7 deficit.

And then, the big one. JJ Bleday, who was 0-5 to start the game, pounced on a fastball down the middle and sent it deep over the center field wall, scoring himself and Toro to make it a 9-9 game and completing their third and final comeback of the day.

With the bases now empty, it looked like more innings would be in store and Kotsay would have to keep digging deeper into his bullpen. However, a couple of timely hits from Brown and Gelof put the A’s back into a winning position. The hard groundball from Gelof almost scored Brown but Rockies shortstop had a diving stop to keep the ball in the infield and prevent Brown from getting past third base.

The Rockies intentionally walked McCann with 2 outs to load the bases and set up the force out at any base. However, with Colorado reliever Peter Lambert looking out of whack, the force out never came into play. Pitching to Tyler Soderstrom with the game on the line, Lambert threw ball after ball in the dirt, giving the freest of bases to the typically aggressive youngster in 4 pitches and walking in the walk-off run.

It was an incredibly wild victory for the A’s but one that the team might have needed to mentally snap them out of their funk. Skills are one big part of it, but confidence is another. Scoring 9 of their 10 runs at a deficit should be plenty proof that they have the fight to win. They just need to start backing that confidence up with production more consistently. Maybe then, they can get back on track for their longshot quest to .500.