Game #118: Murphy powers A’s to 7-2 win over Rangers

The A’s won their second straight game and guaranteed at least a series split with a 7-2 win over the Texas Rangers.

Oakland got another strong performance from a rookie starting pitcher while the stud catcher swatted a pair of home runs to help power the offense. On top of that, his likely replacement smacked his first career home run!

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The scoring got started early today when Sean Murphy hit his 15th home run of the season in the first inning for a quick A’s lead:

Texas got that run right back the next inning off Adam Oller in the bottom of the first. A single and RBI double from Adonis Garcia tied this game and it looked like there would be a lot more runs scored this game.

That would only be true for the A’s tonight as Oller buckled down from the first inning and tossed five more without allowing a run.

-Adam Oller: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 4 K, 77 pitches

Easily the best start of his young career. That’s now two straight starts that Oakland has received a good performance from a rookie acquired from a recent trade. Remember, it took Chris Bassitt, Sean Manaea, and Frankie Montas a few years to reach their potential. Oller is going to get a bunch more starts to continue his development this year and today was an encouraging sign of progress from the right-hander.

Meanwhile the offense gave him plenty of run support. Murphy came up again in the third, this time with a runner on, and hit his second home run of the night, his 16th this year:

That made it a 3-1 game, close enough for Texas to still mount a comeback. That is, until the eighth inning when the A’s scored four runs to put this game just about out of reach for the Rangers. It all started with, you guessed it, Sean Murphy, who doubled to start the inning. Chad Pinder was next up and he lined a single up the middle that drove Murphy in, and Pinder advanced all the way to third on the throw:

Infielder Vimael Machin came up after a couple outs and came through with a 2-out RBI single to bring Pinder in from third, and the scoring was capped with a bang when Shea Langeliers hit his first big league home run, a two-run shot to right-center:

Hopefully the first of many for the Green & Gold. That capped the scoring for the A’s tonight, and the bullpen did its job and kept Texas from rallying back into this game. Zack Jackson and Dany Jimenez both has scoreless innings and Kirby Snead allowed a single run in his inning of work.

Everything went Oakland’s way tonight and the young players being given a chance to play have been apart of both of these wins against the Rangers. Oller shined for six innings and the offense collected nine total hits including the three home runs. They even had a nice play to end it:

So they definitely will at least split the series and but they have a chance at a series win tomorrow morning. They’ll march out their third straight rookie starter in Zach Logue, who’ll be going against Dane Dunning. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Langeliers behind the plate after Murphy caught tonight’s game, too.