The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Davis homers off Price in 8th
OAKLAND, Calif. — Khris Davis summed up his deciding home run off Boston lefty David Price in less time than it took for the ball to clear the fence.
“First pitch hacking,” Davis said. “That’s what happened.”
Davis hit a tiebreaking, three-run homer with two outs in the eighth inning, sending the Oakland Athletics over the Red Sox 4-1 on Sunday.
A day after getting no-hit by Sean Manaea, Boston lost back-to-back games for the first time under new manager Alex Cora.
“Our pitching staff will always give us a chance to win. I feel we are capable of scoring runs every night. Obviously, that’s not always going to happen. We can’t score eight or nine runs every night,” Cora said.
The Red Sox had won their first six series this season before dropping two of three at the Coliseum. They still have the best record in the majors at 17-4.
“It’s big knowing we can compete with good teams like Boston,” Davis said. “We just have to ride the wave out as long as we can. The pitching has been fantastic. Any time the pitching is on, we want to be putting up runs.”
Davis had two hits and drove in all four runs for the A’s. Marcus Semien and Stephen Piscotty added two hits apiece as Oakland won for the sixth time in seven games.
Semien and Piscotty hit back-to-back singles off Price (2-2) with one out in the eighth. After Jed Lowrie struck out for the third
time, Davis lined the first pitch into the seats in left field for his sixth home run.
“Got a good pitch to hit and he hammered it,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “He’s a three-run homer waiting to happen.”
Davis also had an RBI single off Price in the first.
“He’s very lethal,” Semien said of Davis. “He got a pitch he could handle and he didn’t wait around. He’s hit so many home runs here. That was one of his biggest ones.”
Price allowed nine hits and four runs over 7 2/3 innings. He struck out six and walked one.
“I couldn’t make the pitch when I needed and that was the ballgame,” Price said.