Olson’s big blast launches Oakland
Normally, with Brett Anderson buzzing along with only 66 pitches through five innings, he’d be back out for the sixth in a onerun game. Instead, the A’s signaled clearly Tuesday that “piggybacking” is the new opener.
The previous Wednesday, Anderson went five innings before Jesús Luzardo made his bigleague debut and Anderson joked he was just Luzardo’s “caddie.”
In the A’s 21 victory Tuesday, Anderson caddied for Oakland’s other top pitching prospect, A.J. Puk, who got the win thanks to a mammoth gametying blast by Matt Olson and a goahead double by Seth Brown in the seventh.
With the win, the A’s reduced their magic number for a playoff spot to nine; they held a 1½ game lead temporarily over Tampa Bay, which was still playing Tuesday night, and 2½ games over Cleveland.
On a cold night at the Coliseum, Olson connected on a shot that hit above the suites in center field, a titanic drive that made Kansas City starter Jorge Lopez flail in frustration and had Olson’s teammates beaming in the dugout at its improbability. Statcast measured the blast at 450 feet, which seemed, if anything, stingy.
“Massive,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said, comparing the homer to one Olson hit at Philadelphia two years ago. “Center field, it’s difficult, you don’t see too many go up there, especially lefties.”
Puk (20) went two scoreless innings, as he did four days earlier at Texas. This very much could be the team’s M.O. down the stretch and right into the postseason to help solve one of Oakland’s biggest problem areas all season: middle relief. Luzardo, Puk and even Yusmeiro Petit could “piggyback” if need be. The system is a common one at the minorleague level, in which assigning two starters to the same game makes workloads more manageable, potentially preventing injuries, and it creates more opportunity to assess talent.
“Brett really didn’t do anything wrong, but when we go into these situations, we script it and let everyone know how it’s going so at least they’re not surprised,” Melvin said. “I’m sure Brett doesn’t want to come out of that game, but he’s done his job, it’s late in the year, he’s made all his starts. Even though it’s frustrating for starters, it seems to have worked out well and allows our younger guys to know when they’re coming in.”
Anderson was a little frustrated, saying, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to go longer, but having a couple of lefties throwing upper 90s after you is never a bad option.
“But yeah, as a starter, it’s ingrained to go as deep and as long as you can. But that’s how it’s worked the last couple of times. Body feels good, arm feels good, but whenever they tell me I’m done, I’m done.”
The plan all along was probably for Anderson to go five again, but he might not have helped his chances for a sixth inning when he gave up a run in the fifth. Ryan McBroom doubled, Cheslor Cuthbert singled him to third, and, with one out, Nick Dini hit a sacrifice fly.
Anderson allowed four hits, didn’t walk a man and struck out two. The previous week, in advance of Luzardo, he’d given up seven hits, three walks and two runs in five innings. Joakim Soria worked a scoreless eighth and Liam Hendriks, who blew the save opportunity Monday, had a 123 ninth for his 23rd save. Hendriks’ 116 strikeouts are the most ever by an A’s reliever.
Olson regained the team homer lead from Matt Chapman, with 35 — and, you’ll recall, Olson missed six weeks after surgery to remove a broken hamate bone. He has hit eight homers in September and leads the league in extrabase hits during the month, with 14.
In 73 career games in September, Olson has 26 homers and 59 RBIs, and he leads the majors in those categories over the past three Septembers.
Brown, who came up Aug. 26, has yet to hit a ball out at the bigleague level after hitting 37 homers for TripleA Las Vegas, but the A’s aren’t complaining, because he’s whacking doubles like he’s Jed Lowrie 2.0 rather than the Brandon Moss 2.0 he has been called. Brown has 21 hits, and 10 of them have gone for extra bases, eight of them doubles. He drove in Mark Canha with one after Canha was hit by a pitch in the seventh, and that proved to be the winning run. The Royals might like to see less of Brown: He’s 7for20 with five runs and five RBIs in six games against them.
Canha has been hit 16 times, second most in the league and fourth most in A’s history (Don Baylor, 20 in 1976; Jason Kendall, 20 in 2005; and Frank Menechino, 19 in 2001). The A’s have been hit by 83 pitches overall, most in the league.