The A’s won their second straight game in Minnesota on Wednesday evening, beating the Twins by a 4-2 final in extra innings thanks to some late heroics to secure the series. Next step: a sweep tomorrow morning!
The Athletics jumped out to an early lead against Twins starter Bailey Ober tonight. After going down 1-2-3 in the top of the first Tyler Soderstrom hit a leadoff double to start the second. A productive out from Lawrence Butler moved him to third, then shortstop Darell Hernaiz brought Sodey
in with a big sac fly to center field that almost got out of the yard and came within feet of his fourth career homer:
Alas, Hernaiz will have to wait for that but it was definitely deep enough for the sac fly. That wouldn’t be the last time Sodey would cross home plate though. Just a couple of inning later our left fielder went yard against Ober, driving a hanging changeup down Broadway into straight away center field:
That’s big fly #23 for Soderstrom on the year. That homer extended his MLB-leading 18-game hitting streak. Anyone think the 23-year-old can reach 30 long balls by the end of the season?
Meanwhile Athletics starting pitcher JT Ginn was cruising early against the Twins’ offense. Coming into tonight riding a bit of a rough streak and looking to turn things around, the rookie righty looked much sharper on the mound during the first couple frames. He ran into his first trouble in the third when the Twins collected back-to-back doubles to start the bottom of the inning. With the infield in, Ginn induced a groundball right to his shortstop and Hernaiz gunned down the runner at home trying to score. Just a few pitches later Ginn got another grounder to his defense and Luis Urias and Hernaiz combined for a double play to escape the inning. How about that magic from Ginn?
The good times wouldn’t last all night for Ginn. Minny broke through against our rookie starter for a pair of runs in the fifth to tie it up. First came a leadoff double, and Ginn almost escaped with just that after getting the next two outs. Instead an RBI single and RBI double tied this game up, and one more walk later and Mark Kotsay had seen enough. He came out to get his rookie starter after just 4 2/3 frames with runners on first and second in a tie game.
- JT Ginn: 4 2/3 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 81 pitches
His final stat line doesn’t show it but tonight was a bounce back performance from Ginn. It wasn’t a great start, per se. But it was a step in the right direction for the young starter. Let’s just hope he can build off this in his next scheduled start, which comes next week to start the homestand against the playoff-bound Detroit Tigers. Not an easy test coming up for Ginn.
From there things got quiet for both teams. It was lefty veteran Sean Newcomb who stepped in and bridged the gap from Ginn to the later innings. Newcomb finished the fifth for Ginn and then also pitched a full sixth and the first two batters of the seventh before finally making way for right-hander Elvis Alvarado. While Alvarado was able to finish the seventh, he ran into trouble in the eighth with two leadoff hits. The rookie reliever managed to keep them there with a couple outs to center fielder Colby Thomas, and then Kotsay turned to Hogan Harris to escape the jam, which he promptly did with a weak ground out. He also pitched a scoreless ninth, getting this game to extra innings.
The A’s really wanted to go home. Starting the inning with a runner on second base, the first batter of extra innings Shea Langeliers launched another home run, his 28th of the year and 16th(!!!) since the All-Star Break:
Back-to-back nights. That put the A’s back ahead for the first time since the fifth. Terry Steinbach’s 35-homer record from an A’s catcher looks mighty attainable now for “Bangeliers”.
Now with a two-run lead, Kotsay turned to Tyler Ferguson for the save. Starting the inning with a runner on second and, therefor, the tying run at the plate, Ferguson got a lineout to center, a pop out, walked the tying run on base, and then finally a harmless groundout to second to end the game and secure the save, his second of the season and just the fourth of his career.
Well it took an extra inning but the A’s came away with the victory, their 58th win of the season. While the offense was absent for most of the game (4 hits through 8 innings), the pitching held up its end and the bats were able to squeeze out the right amount of big hits to secure the win. The bullpen had a scoreless evening, the defense was tight with no errors (and even a Soderstrom save in left field) and the team now has a chance to sweep the Twins in their home ballpark. Tough to be a fan in Minnesota right now, who are in complete free fall, but we are the spoilers of all.
The club wraps up the series tomorrow morning. Finishing things up on the A’s end will be another rookie in righty Jack Perkins. He’s coming off a couple of solid outings when he pitched five full innings and allowed three runs in each appearance. Not dominant stuff, but definitely enough to give the offense a chance. The Twins meanwhile have yet to announce their starter opposing Perkins so the club will be a bit flat-footed in that regard. We got this though, right?
