By Morris Phillips

Like a lot of Oakland A’s acquisitions, Aaron Brooks is a small name replacing a bigger name.  The key for Oakland and Brooks is that he doesn’t remain anonymous for too long.

For Brooks, the transition to prominence began last night with a dazzling debut at the O.co. Coliseum.  The 25-year old righthander acquired in the Ben Zobrist trade shut down the Indians, pitching into the eighth inning allowing a run in the A’s 5-1 win.

“What a night for him,” Stephen Vogt said.  “He took a good lineup over there and shut them down tonight.”

“That was a terrific game.  Exceeded my expectations, whatever they were for him,” manager Bob Melvin said.

The A’s remain mired in the American League cellar, 13 games below .500, but the win snapped a three-game losing streak, and the team’s offense got moving in the process.  The A’s had just two hits on Thursday, and one hit Friday in dropping the first two games of the series.  On Saturday, the A’s tallied eight hits, including Marcus Semien’s mammoth, seventh-inning home run that put the A’s up 4-1.

Brooks’ debut and the offensive breakout offered a nice counterpoint to Zobrist’s big night in Toronto in which he homered twice in the Royals’ 7-6 win.  Brooks had been stuck in an awful start to his big league career that saw his ERA balloon to 43.88 in 2014, and was 6.23 in limited action this season for Kansas City.

Brooks kept the Royals off-balance with a four-pitch repetoire including a swing-and-miss changeup, a huge improvement on his previous outings.  He struck out five, didn’t walk anyone and cruised into the eighth inning on an efficient 94 pitches.

Melvin was quick to announce after the ballgame that Brooks had earned a spot in the team’s starting rotation going forward with the newly acquired Felix Doubront the guy who will—at least for now—be bypassed in the team’s short range plans.

“I mean, we want to take a look at our young guys, some of the guys that we traded for,” Melvin said.  “We wanted to see how he reacted to pitching at the big league level.  It was his first big league win, so it would’ve been pretty tough to send him down after that.”

Cleveland starter Cody Anderson allowed a run in the second and two in the fifth, before Semien’s homer knocked him out the game in the seventh.  After spectacular outings from Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, Anderson was just okay against Oakland on Saturday.  Despite the wins to open the series with the A’s, the Indians have dropped seven of their last 10 contests.

On Sunday, the A’s try to gain the split with Sonny Gray on the hill.  Gray was at his best in his previous outing on Tuesday in Los Angeles where he shut down the Dodgers on three hits.  Trevor Bauer will get the start Sunday for Cleveland.