A’s 9, Orioles 3:
Starter Kendall Graveman, homers from rookies carry Oakland to win.
In the initial stages Sunday, Kendall Graveman’s outing had all the hallmarks of the A’s recent blah starting pitching: lots of good contact against him, early runs, high pitch count.
Graveman, Oakland’s most experienced starter, did not allow things to get out of hand, though, and his young teammates backed him with a fiverun fourth inning in a 9-3 victory over the Orioles that gave Graveman his first win since April 8. Matt Chapman and Matt Olson each homered Sunday; Olson, recalled Tuesday, has hit blasts in three consecutive games.
Matt Joyce also homered Sunday, making it a Matt Pack day rather than a Bat Pack day.
“I get really excited about these guys and the talent they have,” Joyce said of the rookies. “There is a tremendous amount of young talent here. They’re fun to play with. They’re a great group of guys . ... It’s going to be an exciting future for the A’s.”
Graveman, making his third start since coming off the disabled list Aug. 3, matched his season high by working seven innings and his career high with eight strikeouts. “That’s the best I’ve pitched in a while,” said Graveman, who was especially happy with his location.
Oakland’s starters had allowed at least four runs in 13 of the previous 15 games and put up an ERA of 7.83.
Baltimore recorded seven hits off Graveman in the first three innings, but in the third, after allowing singles by Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop, Graveman struck out Adam Jones, got Trey Mancini to hit into a groundout and struck out Mark Trumbo.
“The way things are going, you can’t help but think, ‘Do we have to get someone up here pretty soon?’ It was six or seven hits pretty early,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Then after that, it was like we were used to seeing him.”
That began a stretch of nine consecutive outs. In the sixth, Graveman gracefully skirted danger again after a leadoff single by Jones and a walk to Mancini, getting Trumbo to hit into a double play and then striking out Chris Davis. Graveman credited, among other things, working with catcher Bruce Maxwell between innings about the plan of attack. “For us to be on the same page is huge,” Graveman said.
Ryon Healy singled in Oakland’s first run off Jeremy Hellickson. Then Khris Davis sprinted home on Olson’s grounder to first, and Chapman clocked a three-run shot down the left-field line, his eighth in 40 career games.
The A’s tacked on another in the fifth, as Joyce doubled, stole third and scored on a sacrifice fly by Marcus Semien, then Joyce crushed a two-run homer in the seventh off lefty Richard Bleier, Joyce’s 16th.
Olson homered to right in the eighth off Baltimore closer Zach Britton, the first homer Britton had allowed since April 11, 2016, and the first off him by a left-handed hitter since April 29, 2013.
“They’ve been throwing me inside a pretty decent amount, especially the lefties, so I sat on an inside pitch,” Olson said, “and I got it.”
With one on and a run already in in the second, Olson aggressively charged Seth Smith’s tapper down the firstbase line, threw to second and Semien went back to first, where Graveman was covering. Smith failed to run, believing the tapper was foul.
“You don’t want to assume anything nowadays with replay,” Melvin said. “You finish the play no matter what. That’s a heady play because usually guys pause and if the hitter doesn’t go anywhere, you assume it hit him . ... At that point of the game, that’s a big, big two outs for us . ...
“And the home run off Britton, I don’t even know what to say about that.”