Athletics’ bats tame Tigers in pivotal Game 3
OAKLAND 6 DETROIT 3 Benches clear in ninth as Balfour, Martinez spar
detroit • Turns out the Oakland Athletics don’t need a brilliant pitching performance to beat detroit.
They can outslug the Tigers too.
brandon Moss, Josh reddick and Seth Smith homered for the Athletics, who chased Anibal Sanchez in the fifth inning Monday and defeated the Tigers 6-3 for a 2-1 AL division series lead.
Moss broke a 3-all tie in the fifth with a solo shot, and Smith’s two-run drive later in the inning ended Sanchez’s day. It was an impressive offensive show after the teams split two tense, low-scoring games in Oakland.
The A’s can close out the series Tuesday and reach the AL championship series for the first time since 2006 — when they were swept by the Tigers. Oakland will send rookie dan Straily to the mound against detroit’s doug Fister.
“It was exciting for brandon to get us on the board,” Smith said. “It was nice to score some runs and get back on top there.”
Sanchez, the American League’s erA leader, allowed six runs — five earned — and eight hits in 4 1/3 innings. Smith has homered off Sanchez more than any other player, having now done it twice in the regular season and twice in the post-season.
There was activity in the detroit bullpen before Smith’s homer Monday, and he made the Tigers pay for sticking with the struggling Sanchez.
“Sometimes he starts out a little slow, you figure he’s going to get it going,” detroit man- ager Jim Leyland said. “Today he just really didn’t get it going. He made a couple of real bad pitches the last inning he was out there to Moss and Smith.”
Jarrod Parker gave up three runs in five innings for Oakland.
Grant balfour pitched a hitless ninth for the save — and became involved in shouting with Victor Martinez that caused the benches and bullpens to empty. Martinez had just hit a foul ball out of play when he and balfour appeared to start jawing at each other.
Martinez started slowly toward the mound, and players from both teams came running out. The situation eventually calmed.
“It’s competition. everyone gets going a little bit,” Moss said. “balfour’s a character on the mound. There are going to be fireworks sometimes.”
coco crisp had two doubles and a single for the A’s.
After a pitcher’s duel in Game 2 between Oakland’s Sonny Gray and detroit’s Justin Verlander, the A’s had Sanchez in trouble almost immediately. They scored a run in the third and two more in the fourth, and although the Tigers finally snapped out of their offensive funk with a three-run bottom of the fourth, Sanchez couldn’t keep the ball in the park.
Moss hit a line drive over the wall in right field to make it 4-3, and Smith’s high fly carried over the fence in left-centre.
Now detroit needs two straight wins to extend its season. A banged-up Miguel cabrera made an error at third base that gave the A’s their first run, and detroit’s vaunted starting rotation finally slipped in Game 3.
Sanchez allowed 0.45 homers per nine innings in the regular season, the lowest mark in the AL. Oakland took him deep three times.