Shaky debut aids hot start
For the past three weeks, the A’s hadn’t scored in the first inning. A span of 17 games, and zilch in inning No. 1.
On Saturday, Oakland faced right-hander Trevor May, making his major-league debut for the Twins, and May had trouble throwing strikes. That helped the A’s break through the first-inning blockade; May walked Derek Norris with the bases loaded in the opening inning, the first of Norris’ five RBIs, and Oakland topped Minnesota again, this time by a score of 9-4.
“We cashed in when we needed to,” Norris said. “We made him pay for free passes.”
The A’s have won all six games between the teams this season and have a 12-game overall winning streak against the Twins. A major component
of those dozen wins: Oakland has walloped 22 homers. For the season, the A’s are 35-4 when out-homering opponents.
“The homers helped,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said. “We’ve been a little shy with those lately. And that cures a lot of ills when you’re scoring three runs with one swing of the bat.”
The A’s drew a season-high-tying 11 walks, including Eric Sogard’s four. Norris had another bases-loaded walk in the second inning — and he also hit a three-run homer in the sixth to go along with Stephen Vogt’s two-run blast in the fifth.
Six of Norris’ career-high 10 homers this year have been three-run shots. “Quite a coincidence,” he said. “I like to think when runners get on base is the time you make your money.”
The big hit of the second inning came from Josh Donaldson, who whacked the first pitch he got for a two-run single after May had walked the previous three hitters.
That made it four runs in the first two innings for the A’s, who’d managed three runs, total, over the first three innings of the previous eight games on the homestand.
And how does Jeff Samardzija do when given more than two runs of support? Typically very, very well: He’s 5-1 in nine starts backed with three or more runs, 0-7 in 15 starts with two or fewer.
In his seven starts with the A’s, Samardzija is 3-1 with a 3.08 ERA and Oakland is 6-1. He snapped a 14-start winless streak at night dating to last Aug. 24.
In each of Samardzija’s last two starts, the “Rally Possum” — an opossum dubbed, among other things on social media, O.Possum — has appeared.
“He likes me,” Samardzija said. “I need to go find this guy. He’s pretty sweet, man, he knows what he’s doing. He shows up at the right time, like down times of games. He must have a little ego on him, which I don’t mind.”
Samardzija, who said he felt he was fighting himself in the early innings, also allowed one run in the first, giving up a one-out double to Brian Dozier and a single to Trevor Plouffe. Danny Santana led off the fifth with a double, moved to second on a groundout by Dozier and scored on a groundout by Plouffe.
“I felt like I was in the stretch the whole game,” said Samardzija, who threw 109 pitches in six innings. “I just made a couple good pitches when I needed to, but I made it harder on myself at other times.”
Donaldson finished with three hits, and he was drilled on the left hip by Samuel Deduno in the sixth. Donaldson has a 16-game hitting streak against the Twins, second longest in Oakland history against Minnesota after Terrance Long’s 19.
The scoreless streak by Oakland’s bullpen ended at 292⁄ innings when Dan Otero
3 allowed two runs in the eighth.
The A’s, a season-high 28 games over .500 at 72-44, have won three in a row for the first time since a six-game winning streak at the start of July.