Montas leads Athletics to 6th straight win over Tigers
OAKLAND, Calif. – Frankie Montas allowed two hits in six sharp innings and the Oakland Athletics won their sixth straight game by beating the Detroit Tigers 3-0 on Friday night.
After opening the season with six consecutive losses, the roller-coaster A’s are back at .500 after 14 games thanks to their follow-up winning streak.
Oakland joined the 1991 Mariners and 1915 White Sox as the only teams to have both a six-game winning streak and six-game losing streak in the first 14 games of a season, according to SportRadar.
“Once you get in a hole like that you’re just trying to win games and win series and try to get your footing again,” manager Bob Melvin said. “I guess there’s some significance with the fact we were 0-6 to start and pretty good since.”
The recent run has been fueled by strong starting
Athletics 3 Tigers 0 OAK: 7-7 DET: 6-8
pitching. Montas (2-1) gave up only an infield single to Robbie Grossman and a clean single to Victor Reyes during an impressive 100-pitch outing. The right-hander walked one and struck out seven.
A’s starters are 4-0 with a 3.13 ERA during the winning streak after going 0-7 with a 7.91 ERA in the first eight games.
“I felt like I’m the kind of pitcher when I hit my spots and am throwing strikes, it’s tough for hitters to get good timing on my two-seamer when I’m putting it where I want to,” Montas said. “That’s what I did tonight. I located my two-seam pretty good.”
Mitch Moreland and Sean Murphy had twoout RBI hits in the fourth against José Ureña (0-3). The Tigers have lost backto-back games to Oakland following a three-game sweep at Houston.
Ureña had a career-high eight strikeouts in seven innings and walked only two after issuing nine free passes over 7 2/3 innings in his first two starts this season.
“To see him come in on attack mode and get into the game pretty cleanly and be able to navigate his innings, it was vintage José Ureña,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “It was a good performance. We really needed it.”
Matt Chapman added a home run in the eighth. Lou Trivino pitched the ninth for his second save.
STREAKING
Oakland 2B Jed Lowrie had two hits to give him six straight multi-hit games. Lowrie entered the season with no hits since 2018. Beset by leg injuries, he missed last season and had no hits in seven at-bats for the Mets in 2019.