Turns out that if the other team can’t field or pitch you can score lots of runs and win easily. For 7 innings the A’s dominated the normal way, and then for the last 2 innings a position player lobbed pitches 10 feet in arc, serving up 12 hits and 8 runs.
The theme of Yusei Kikuchi’s night was that he had no problem getting the first 2 outs and then quite a bit of difficulty thereafter. In the top of the 1st, after the first 2 batters got out the A’s loaded the bases against Kikuchi setting the stage
for Tyler Soderstrom to hit a hard line drive at Taylor Ward.
Ward didn’t lose it in the lights a la St. Louis on Wednesday, but he did manage to completely misjudge and misplay it, making a desperate last minute leap as the ball sailed over his head to the wall and cleared the bases. 3-0 A’s and this time JT Ginn didn’t immediately give it back working a shutdown inning in the bottom half.
In the 2nd the A’s took a stranglehold on the game with a 4 run outburst. Again Kikuchi got the first 2 out but then Shea Langeliers and Brent Rooker doubled back to back, Nick Kurtz walked, and Colby Thomas launched a 3-run HR. It was Thomas’ second 3-run HR off of Kikuchi this year.
Ginn, like Barnett before him, went the requisite 5 innings to qualify for the win and acquitting himself well: 5 IP, 5 hits, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K. Kurtz added a mammoth HR in the 4th (#29) and by the 8th the A’s had a commanding 9-1 lead.
That’s when Scott Kingery came on to pitch the last 2 innings. When Carlos Cortes woke up this morning he probably didn’t envision that he would hit his first major league HR on a pitch that came in 34.8 MPH. And yet that’s exactly what happened.
Of the 12 hits Kingery served up in his 2 innings, two of them were 3-run HRs, one by Cortes and the other by JJ Bleday. With a WHIP of 6.00 and an ERA of 54.00 it feels unlikely Kingery will be invited to pitch in save opportunities any time soon.
Thanks in part to the garbage time innings, but also owing to how poorly Jose Soriano and Yusei Kikuchi showed up as SPs, the A’s have outscored the Angels 27-8 so far in the series. They will go for the sweep Sunday behind Luis Severino and if they get it they will leave town with a share of 4th place.
