Olson’s homer rallies A’s past Astros 4-3 in 10th — Oakland one game out of AL West lead.
Exactly two months after trailing Houston by 12 games on June 18, the A’s on Saturday will have a chance to tie the Astros for first place in the AL West.
Oakland trailed the Astros 3-2 in the ninth on Friday night before tying the game on a replay reversal. Then Matt Olson led off the bottom of the 10th by launching a 3-2 pitch from Tony Sipp over the wall in right.
Home run No. 23 this season for the A’s first baseman cut Houston’s lead in the division to a mere game. The A’s celebrated a 4-3 victory in front of 23,535 at the Coliseum.
Olson won the lefty-lefty matchup against Sipp. It’s Olson second career homer off Sipp in six at-bats.
“I kind of know what he likes to do to me,” Olson said. “I wasn’t expecting a 3-2 slider right there but I was able to keep my hands back on it.”
As for hitting his first majorleague game-ending homer,
Olson said, “It’s the most juiced I’ve gotten on the field, for sure.”
What was he thinking as he rounded third and saw his teammates ready to mob him at the plate?
“I don’t know. I forget. I blacked out,” he said. “I remember chucking my helmet and just yelling and jumping around with all the guys.”
As for the wild-card race, the A’s moved 3½ games ahead of Seattle for the second spot; the Mariners got humbled 11-1 by the Dodgers. Oakland trails the Yankees for the first spot by three games; New York beat the Rays 7-5 in a game shortened by rain to seven innings.
The Astros, who own the majors’ best road record at 41-19, had been unbeaten in the Bay Area in 2018. They’re 6-1 at the Coliseum and they swept a two-game series from the Giants at AT&T Park last week.
The A’s have won 39 of their past 52 games. Blake Treinen (6-2), Oakland’s fifth reliever, struck out the side in the 10th to pick up the win. He lowered his ERA to 0.87.
Oakland trailed 3-2 in the ninth. With one out, Hector Rondon walked pinch-hitter Chad Pinder. Ramon Laureano then ran for Pinder.
Nick Martini then laced a double off the wall in right. Laureano, who has excellent speed, motored around the bases, but the relay from Josh Reddick to shortstop Carlos Correa to catcher Martin Maldonado looked to cut down Laureano sliding into the plate.
Umpire Alfonso Marquez called Laureano out, but after a three-minute, six-second review, the call was overturned and the game was tied.
There was some thought that Alex Bregman might have obstructed Laureano as he rounded third. In any event, a reporter asked A’s manager Bob Melvin if he was surprised that the call was overturned; many of the replays appeared inconclusive.
Melvin said Maldonado “didn’t initially tag him, it didn’t look like to me. … It looked like he had some more distance to go to actually tag (Laureano) before he put his fingers on home plate. I’m probably a little biased, but that’s what I saw.”
A’s third baseman Matt Chapman added another hightlight to his Gold Glove-candidacy reel in the third inning
On a foul pop by Reddick, Chapman raced into the A’s bullpen to make a backhanded, sliding grab.
Home runs by Bregman in the fourth and Maldonado in the fifth gave Houston a 2-0 edge. The A’s tied the game with two runs in the bottom of the fifth. Chapman sliced an RBI single to right to make it 2-2.
Chapman extended his hitting streak to 14 games, tying the A’s season high set by Khris Davis. Chapman has reached base in 30 straight games, the longest such in-season streak for Oakland since Mark Ellis put together a 32-gamer in 2007.