⏩ A’s 12, Padres 4: Barreto leads offense in a sweep.
SAN DIEGO — Franklin Barreto has energy, speed and enough power to be a legitimate threat at the plate. Now it’s about getting regular playing time to put it all on display. As he did Wednesday. “Obviously, if you play every day, you get a little more confidence and comfortable,” Barreto said after he hit one of five A’s home runs and added a Little League triple in a 12-4 rout of the Padres that concluded a twogame interleague sweep.
The A’s hit back-to-back homers in back-to-back innings for the first time since 1997, and it all started with Barreto, 22, Oakland’s top hitting prospect who hasn’t been given an extended stretch at the big-league level to show he can be a star. Presumably, he’ll get it now. Aside from beginning the team’s homers barrage with a three-run shot in the second inning, Barreto turned a 15-foot swinging bunt into three bases in the third. On a play that won’t be featured in the Padres’ season highlight video, if there is such a thing, he took off as if he were a 6-year-old in his first tee-ball game.
The Padres played along, too. Pitcher Robbie Erlin threw the ball past first base, and Cory Spangenberg (who was backing up first) threw it past second. Barreto didn’t stop running until he reached third.
“He’s got a lot of athleticism,” manager Bob Melvin said, “and on top of it for kind of a small package, he’s got some power. We’ve seen that before. With consistent at-bats, he’s got a chance to be a productive guy. He showed why in his first couple of at-bats.”
Barreto was recalled from Triple-A Nashville on Saturday and has played three of four games, missing Tuesday’s because — with no DH rule in effect — Melvin wanted to play Khris Davis in left field.
The domino effect sent Chad Pinder to second and Barreto to the bench. Wednesday, Davis was out of the lineup with what Melvin called a stomach illness, so Pinder played left and Barreto played second.
“We’ll take it day by day,” Melvin said of Barreto’s playing time. “I’m trying to get him more at-bats. Certainly the best lineup that particular day is the one we’re going to try to go with. If Pinder’s swinging the bat well, there’s a chance he’ll play second base over Frankie.”
Of course, everything changes when third baseman Matt Chapman returns from the disabled list, though that might not be soon. The hope is he’ll take some swings Thursday to see if his latest cortisone shot in his hand worked. Jed Lowrie has been playing third and would move back to second with Chapman aboard.
Josh Phegley followed Barreto’s homer with one of his own. An inning later, Mark Canha and Matt Olson hit consecutive homers. The previous time the A’s hit back-to-back homers in consecutive innings was May 14, 1997, against the Brewers.
Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, the brethren of bash, went back to back in one inning, and Matt Stairs and Canseco did the same the next inning. Both McGwire and Stairs witnessed the A’s latest explosion as Padres coaches.
Lowrie added a two-run homer in the eighth, continuing a season-long theme. The A’s have hit 62 homers in 34 road games, and they’ve homered in each of the past 21 games on the road, matching a franchise record set in 2013.
At the Coliseum, they’ve hit 36 homers in 40 games.
“We’ve hit some balls really hard you’d expect to be extrabase hits at home that turned into outs,” Lowrie said. “I don’t want to say we’ve got to change our approach, but we’ve got to find a way to get it done at home.”