Lowrie stays hot as Oakland A’s earn walkoff win
OAKLAND – Jed Lowrie made sure the Oakland A’s started the second half of the season with a bang.
Lowrie hit a two-run, walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off Emmanuel Clase as the A’s beat the Cleveland Indians 5-4 before an announced crowd of 12,361 at the Coliseum.
Elvis Andrus started the ninth inning with a single to right field. After Matt Olson lined out to second base, Lowrie turned in a Clase fastball and deposited it in the right-field seats.
A’s manager Bob Melvin doesn’t put a lot of stock into what happens in games immediately after the all-star break. Everyone always feels a little bit rusty after four days away, he said, an eternity for players used to competing almost every day for six months.
Olson and Lowrie had RBIs and Mitch Moreland hit a solo home run in his return to the lineup as the A’s built a three-run lead, but starter Sean Manaea couldn’t make it past the sixth inning and Yusmeiro Petit was less than perfect in relief.
The A’s stranded 10 runners for the game, including two in the sixth inning and three in the seventh. Oakland loaded the bases loaded with one out in the seventh, but Indians reliever Bryan Shaw got Moreland and Sean Murphy to strike out looking.
Melvin said before Friday’s game about the layoff that “you’re always a little worried just because of the rust, but other teams are dealing with the same thing. So I don’t think you put too much stock in the first couple of games.”
Andrus went 3-for-5 with a run
scored and also made the defensive play of the game. With Bradley Zimmer on second base in the third inning, Andrus dove to his right to grab a line drive from Cesar Hernandez, potentially saving a run. Andrus then flipped the ball to Lowrie for a highlight-reel double play.
Manaea allowed a solo home run to Roberto Perez in the fifth inning and an RBI single to Franmil Reyes in the sixth.
With the A’s leading 3-2, Manaea was replaced by Petit with one out in the sixth. Harold Ramirez’s sacrifice fly scored Jose Ramirez from third base, and Petit allowed a solo home run to Zimmer with one out in the seventh.
Manaea was looking for his first win since June 14 when he allowed one earned run over 5 2/3 innings in what turned into an 8-5 A’s win over the Los Angeles Angels.
Since then, Manaea had been a hard-luck starter, going 0-4 in games before Friday despite a 3.91 ERA and holding opposing batters to a .213 average. In that time, Manaea received just four runs of support, as the four-game losing streak represented a career-high.
The A’s won’t have the luxury of easing into the second half of the season over the next few weeks.
The A’s play the Indians again on Saturday and Sunday and finish their homestand with games against the Angels on Monday and Tuesday. After that, Oakland begins a 10-game road trip, starting with four games against the Seattle Mariners.
Melvin said as the second half begins, he’s looking for more consistency. The A’s had a 13-game win streak in April, but also went 15-14 in May and entered Friday with a 4-6 record this month.
The A’s got Moreland back after a seven-game absence for unspecified reasons and hope to get outfielder Mark Canha back in the lineup either Saturday or Sunday after he’s been out since June 24 with hip issues.
Oakland entered Friday’s game 3 1/2 games back of the Houston Astros for first place in the American League West, and with a 3 1/2 game lead over the Seattle Mariners for the second AL Wild Card spot. Cleveland was 4 1/2 games back of the A’s.
The A’s have been a second-half team in recent seasons, and may need be again in 2021 if they want to make the playoffs for the fourth straight year.
“We’re starting to get healthy,” Melvin said, “and we feel like we’ve always had pretty good momentum in the second half. We’ll see what happens around the (July 30) trade deadline.”