Davis’ dash helps Oakland win
ST. LOUIS — Khris Davis saw he had a chance to score, so he took off.
Davis hustled home on an infield grounder in the eighth inning to tie the score and Brett Eibner followed with a sacrifice fly as the A’s rallied to beat the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 on Saturday.
Oakland trailed 2-1 in the eighth when Davis singled with one out against Matt Bowman (2-5) and Ryon Healy doubled, extending the longest active hitting streak in the majors to 13 games.
Seung Hwan Oh relieved and Max Muncy hit a grounder that first baseman Brandon Moss stopped with a dive, but Davis easily beat the throw to score the tying run.
“The play was to see the ball through the middle, stay on the corners,” Davis said. “He dove, so as soon as he dove I thought it would be a good time to go.”
Eibner followed with a flyball to center field to score Healy.
A’s starter Zach Neal pitched a career-best six innings and Oakland pitchers held the Cardinals without a hit after the fourth inning, retiring the last 17 batters.
“I caught a second wind after that third inning,” Neal said. “My mechanics started flowing a little bit. The ball was coming out better than it was early on.”
Daniel Coulombe (2-1) and Liam Hendriks combined for two perfect innings to set up Ryan Madson, who pitched a perfect ninth for his 26th save.
“They were great,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said about his bullpen. “Daniel’s now all of a sudden in a role he hasn’t been in before and has to go back out and get the first out of the eighth. Hendriks came in. He was probably more rested than we’ve had in a while and then to get a clean ninth against that team with no base runners.”