Game #150: Athletics Hit Parade Wins the Night

The Athletic bats were dominant the entire game. In the first inning, Jed Lowrie picked up his 46th double of the season scoring Marcus Semien. Athletics draw first blood.

In the 3rd, the A’s added four runs. Marcus Semien, hit by a pitch, advanced to third base on a single by Matt Joyce. Jed Lowrie then did his job and hit a deep fly ball to center field to score Semien on the sacrifice. Matt Olson, after Khris Davis’ strikeout, hit his 22nd dinger of the season, a two-run shot to center field. Ryon Healy then reached first on a throwing error and was knocked in by Chad Pinder on his 14th double of the season. This led to the first pitching change of the night, Artie Lewicki replacing the beat-up Buck Farmer. Athletics 5, Tigers 0.

In the 4th, Bruce Maxwell led off with a single to left. Marcus Semien and Matt Joyce followed suit with singles of their own. With bases loaded, Jed Lowrie then walked to score Maxwell. Khris Davis then hit into a double play but Marcus Semien scored. With two outs after Olson walked, Ryon Healy flew out to center field to end the inning. Athletics 7, Tigers 0.

The Tigers finally scored in the fifth when JaCoby Jones took a sharp liner to left to score Mikie Mahtook. Ian Kinsler followed with his 24th double of the season to score Jones. Kinsler drew more blood when he hit his 19th homer off of Casilla.

In the 8th, the Athletics scored again. Matt Olson walked for the second time on the night and advanced to second on Ryon Healy’s hard shot come-backer that had Detroit pitcher Jeff Ferrell stumbling and immediately removed from the game. Olson then scored on a ground rule double by Chad Pinder. Athletics 8, Tigers 3.

Leave it to A’s pitchers to keep it exciting which in this case was Blake Treinen in the 9th. After getting Jose Eglesias to ground out, 5-3, he went on to walk Kinsler and then walk Candelario. On a heads-up play by Lowrie to double off Kinsler after nabbing a liner from Cabrera to end the game with an Athletics win, 8-3.

Pitching:

Both Oakland and Detroit made it difficult for people keeping score. A total of 12 pitchers, six on each side, were used over the course of the 9 innings. Alcantara, a late change for Jharel Cotton who felt a twinge in his groin during warmups, was pulled in the fourth inning, giving up two hits with two strikeouts and a walk. The replacement choice didn’t make Melvin look like a great decision maker. Castro came in for all of less than an inning and gave up two earned runs and three hits. Hendriks then followed and ended up notching the win, though he only pitched for a little over an inning. Casilla gave up a homerun in his one inning and Hatcher and Treinen gave up three walks in their combined two innings. Meanwhile, Farmer took the loss for the Tigers, giving up 5 of the 8 Athletics runs, four of them earned, in just a little over two innings of work. The six Detroit pitchers racked up a combined six walks and 7 earned runs on a total of 14 A’s hits.

Other Events:

It was a scary night for both the A’s and Tigers as two key players took balls to the head. The first was Chad Pinder who took a grazing shot off of his batting helmet that had him down on one knee. He ended up being fine and taking the bag, later hitting a stand-up double to help increase the A’s lead to 8.

The second scary event was pitcher Jeff Ferrell who took a come-backer off of Ryon Healy’s bat that drilled him in the right rear side of the head at a ball traveling 102mph. Stumbling and running toward the dugout, there was no hesitation by the trainer who got to Ferrell and immediately started walking him into the clubhouse. Update 7/19, 12pm: Ferrell is undergoing a precautionary CT scan but all signs point to everything being fine. Here’s a clip of the event, the replay is at the end:

So, with the first win under their belt, the Athletics head into another night game tomorrow with Daniel Gossett on the mound.