Extra effort pays off
After another typically brilliant outing by Justin Verlander, after more than four hours and after 13 innings, the A’s walked off a winner at the Coliseum on Friday night via a twoout RBI single by Robbie Grossman.
The A’s outlasted Houston 32, extending their winning streak to three games and the Astros’ skid to four games.
Corban Joseph, in his third game with the A’s, opened the 13th with a base hit off Cy Sneed. Chris Herrmann sacrificed Joseph to second. Sneed struck out Marcus Semien but Grossman grounded a base hit up the middle. Joseph motored home with the winning run.
That’s the A’s ninth walkoff win this season, the most in the American League.
Oakland moved 7½ games behind the AL Westleading Astros. The A’s closed to a halfgame back of Tampa Bay for the AL’s second wildcard spot.
Lou Trivino (45) worked three scoreless innings for the win. The Oakland bullpen threw seven shutout innings.
Coming into Friday, Verlander had gone 80 with a 1.38 ERA in his previous nine starts at the Coliseum, including three outings in the 2012 and ’13 postseasons in which he threw 24 scoreless innings.
Verlander also came into Friday leading the American League in ERA (2.82). He was second in the league in wins (15) and third in strikeouts (217).
The 36yearold righthander cruised through a 9up, 9down stretch. He racked up two strikeouts in the first (Grossman and Matt Chapman), two in the second (Matt Olson and Mark Canha) and three in the third (Stephen Piscotty, Joseph and Chris Herrmann).
Semien led off the fourth with a double off the centerfield wall. He moved to third on Grossman’s grounder to first.
Verlander would strand Semien by getting Chapman on a foulout and Olson on a deep flyball to right field. Had Olson lifted a similar drive Thursday, when a Coliseumrecord 10 homers were hit on a warm, still night, it would have landed probably in the second deck.
On a comfortable but nowhere near as warm Friday evening, it was simply the third out of the fourth inning.
The conditions didn’t prevent Canha from reaching the seats in the fifth. He launched a 22 pitch from Verlander over the leftfield wall. Canha’s 18th homer of the season accounted for the game’s first run.