Athletics Win Again, Beat Baltimore 5-4

Make that two in a row for the good guys

The A’s won their second straight game on Friday night, starting their weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles off on the right foot with a close 5-4 victory over their AL East foes.

Taking the hill tonight for the home team was left-hander JP Sears. After suffering through the worst stretch of his young career he got back on track last time out and was looking to keep it going against the Orioles on Friday night in Sacramento.

He was looking good early, getting a couple strikeouts in his first inning of work. The 29-year-old made a mistake in the next inning though, leaving a slider up high to Dylan Carlson and seeing it deposited over the outfield wall for a 2-run home run to give Baltimore the early lead. The Orioles added on another run in the next inning when former Athletic Ramon Laureano collected an RBI sac fly against his former team. The A’s were facing an early deficit.

The Athletics picked up their starter in a big way in the third. After going down in order against Dean Kremer for the first two frames the A’s jumped on him in the third. With two runners on and one out, Lawrence Butler smacked an RBI double to chip into the Orioles’ lead. His partner in crime Jacob Wilson followed him up with a two-run single of his own, and after a Brent Rooker double put two more runners in scoring position Tyler Soderstrom brought Willy in on an RBI groundout. Suddenly it was an Athletics lead:

The Orioles would start rallying the next inning. They managed to get two runners on against Sears and looked like they’d hit a massive two-run double, only to see the magic of Denzel Clarke’s fielding rob them of that chance:

That was, uh.....

... what’s the word? I think Sears’ face says it all:

A picture is worth a thousand words but that catch was worth at least two runs. That killed the momentum that Baltimore had been building and now we were into the latter half of the game. Former top prospect in all of baseball Jackson Holliday greeted Sears with a home run to start the fifth that tied this game up at 4 apiece, but the Athletics rallied as a team to get that run back in the bottom half of the frame when Rook collected his second hit of the day, an RBI single to retake the lead for the Athletics:

That was enough to give Sears the chance at the win. He wouldn’t come out for a sixth inning of work, instead trusting the bullpen could hold on to the small one-run lead. Spoiler alert: it’d last.

• JP Sears: 5 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, 2 HR, 86 pitches

Not great but not terrible. Sears didn’t seem to have his best stuff tonight but to still battle through and provide at least five solid innings speaks to how far he’s come as a pitcher since his rookie season. It also showed how much he still has left to grow and he’ll continue that journey next time out against what will likely be a matchup against the Angels down in Anaheim. Can he get back to his April/early May standards?

Things got quite once the bullpens got involved. Grant Holman and TJ McFarland both provided scoreless innings while Baltimore’s bullpen only allowed three hits over the final 2 ²⁄₃ innings while striking out six A’s hitters. Now it was closing time. Closer Mason Miller entered the game in the eighth for a long save opportunity and finished the frame before closing this game out in the ninth. He was nails, striking out three Orioles and locking down the team’s second straight victory.

Is this what back-to-back wins feels like? It’s awesome! The A’s got an all-around effort tonight, from a gutsy performance from the starting pitcher, to a five-run outburst from the bats, to four shutout innings from the bullpen. We’re back to our winning ways everyone. The team is still in last place in the AL West with a 25-40 record but a couple good weeks could catapult them up a couple spots in the division. For now, let’s go one day at a time.

We do it all again tomorrow evening, same time same place. The Orioles will go with grizzled veteran Charlie Morton for tomorrow night’s starter. He’s limped to a dreadful 6.20 ERA this year and finally seems to be running out of gas in the twilight of his career. The A’s will counter Morton with a rookie compared to Morton in Luis Severino. Set to make his 14th start of the season he’s just 1-5 with a 4.75 ERA but has pitched way better than those numbers would suggest. The A’s would be doing Sevy a huge favor if they got him that elusive second win tomorrow night. We’ll see!