Big night all around sends huge crowd home pleased
Though Tuesday night’s attendance won’t count in the official records, 46,028 fans at the Coliseum for the 50th anniversary of the A’s first game in Oakland saw the team put together one of its best all-around games of the season.
With Trevor Cahill back on the mound, making his Oakland return to the familiar strains of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” the A’s thumped the White Sox 10-2. Jed Lowrie homered, Mark Canha had three hits and Stephen Piscotty two doubles, and Cahill turned in a
sensational outing, with seven scoreless innings to help the A’s earn their third win in a row.
“It was loud, it looked like the place was packed,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said. “I really wanted to put on a good show for them, and our guys did right away.”
Lowrie, who turned 34 Tuesday, hit a two-out solo homer off Miguel Gonzalez in the first, his fifth of the year. Khris Davis followed with a double, Matt Olson an infield single and Matt Chapman walked, setting up Canha’s bases-loaded single. Two runs came in, and Piscotty sent in two more with a double.
Cahill, who was signed to a major-league deal during spring training after seasonending injuries to Jharel Cotton and A.J. Puk, allowed five hits and two walks and struck out eight.
“The first one is always a little more nerve-racking, but the offense helped me out, kind of got me to relax and go out there and fill up the zone,” said Cahill, who came up with the A’s at the age of 21 in 2009 but was traded to Arizona after the 2011 season. “After that first inning, I felt a little more comfortable.”
In the fourth, the A’s added three more runs, with Jonathan Lucroy contributing a two-run single and Marcus Semien a sacrifice fly. Lucroy had an RBI single in the seventh, too.
Reliever Ryan Dull, making his first appearance after missing most of spring training and the start of the season with shoulder soreness, came in the game in the eighth. He struck out Omar Narvaez to lead off the inning, but the catcher reached first on a wild pitch and Yoán Moncada followed with a two-run homer. Dull then struck out the next three batters, giving him a four-K inning — the first in the history of the Coliseum, according to stats expert David Feldman, and the A’s first since Ryan Cook on April 27, 2012. “I guess something happened in 50 years,” Dull joked.
Dull nearly achieved the feat once before against the Rangers. “I knew once I got the third one, I was like, ‘All right, something’s got to happen this time,’ ” he said.
Piscotty, who chipped in a sacrifice fly in the seventh, is on an 11-for-25 run. Lowrie is batting .351, leads the majors in hits with 26 and is tied for the lead in RBIs with 18.
For the A’s anniversary game — the first free game in major-league history — the lineup featured numerous local players: Semien (El Cerrito, Cal), Piscotty (Pleasanton, Stanford) and Canha (San Jose, Cal). Lowrie played at Stanford.
“Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun, and it was very Bay Area-themed,” Canha said. “The fans were great. They made it fun.”
The A’s distributed 200,000 tickets for the game, but in recent weeks had determined through RSVPs that about 70,000 fans still planned to come. The Coliseum holds roughly 66,000 max, and the A’s planned to distribute free tickets to an upcoming game to any ticket-holders who couldn’t get in Tuesday. That didn’t come to pass, and Mount Davis was not put into use, but the Coliseum was nearly full to its baseball capacity, which is 48,592.
The team had hoped to break its single-game attendance mark of 55,989, set June 26, 2004, for a game with the Giants.
Lew Krausse, who started the A’s first game in Oakland on April 17, 1968, threw out the first pitch Tuesday. The 74year-old claimed he was more nervous to do so than he’d been 50 years before. He threw a strike to coach Mike Aldrete.
“I won’t be able to sleep for a week,” Krausse said afterward. “This has really been fun. It was really a thrill. It made my year.”
With the A’s wearing 1968 throwback uniforms, Krausse said his thoughts went back to that first year in Oakland. “I look at these guys running around with those numbers on and I remember my teammates with those numbers,” Krausse said. “I’m going to be higher than a kite forever. I’ve got to have a couple of cocktails to settle down.”