By Morris Phillips

The Coliseum Complex hosted two reigning World Champs on Saturday afternoon in the NBA Warriors and the World Series Champion Royals, dwarfing the A’s and their early-season struggles at home.

Nonetheless, the Athletics—now 26 seasons removed from winning big—measured up by posting a big win, and avoiding their worst start to a season at home since 2001.

Josh Reddick hit a three-run shot in the first inning to back Sonny Gray, who labored through six innings in the A’s 5-3 win. The A’s improved to 5-7 on the season, and won for only the second time in eight games at the Coliseum.

“You never want to say this early in the season anything’s a ‘must’ win, but it was a big win for us,” manager Bob Melvin said.

Stephen Vogt homered for the second consecutive game, and the A’s pounded out double-digit hits for the first time in 2016. But this one was won in the middle innings as Kansas City tried to mount a comeback, challenging Gray with lengthy at-bats in the fourth and fifth inning, but denting the A’s ace for just one run.

Gray’s pitch count mounted in the first three innings, and the fourth and the fifth put him at 100 pitches for the game. Just like they did in their post-season run to the World Series crown, the Royals were battling at the plate, while Gray felt his stuff was good, he was missing location more often than what he would find comfortable .  The A’s defense behind Gray gave, but occasionally took, with second baseman Jed Lowrie committing a pair of errors.

“Today he dug deep for us to get through that sixth inning,” Melvin said of Gray.

“They’re really pesky and make you work for every single out,” Gray said, basically describing each of the first five innings.

With a run in, and two on in the fourth, Gray induced a ground ball from Alcides Escobar that ended the inning. In the fifth, Kendrys Morales looked at a pair of called strikes before grounding into an inning-ending double play with two more runners aboard.

Eager to compete—and win—Gray made sure he avoided eye contact with Melvin when entering the dugout after the fourth and fifth, in fear that the manager would lift his starter. Melvin took Gray’s cue and sent him back out for the sixth.

“Obviously, I’d like to get deeper. But I’m glad they gave me the opportunity to go back out there,” Gray said.

Gray rewarded that faith with a 1-2-3 inning in the sixth that required his final 14 pitches of the afternoon. The A’s bullpen took it from there as John Axford, Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson recorded the final nine outs.

Chris Young took the loss for Kansas City, falling to 0-3.  The 6’10” veteran looked like a mechanical mess, allowing Reddick’s blast, walking a couple, and getting pulled in the fifth with the Royals trailing 4-2.

The win ended a four-game losing streak dating back to their sweep last weekend in Seattle. Lucky for Oakland, the AL West hasn’t set the world on fire in the first two weeks, and the first place Rangers—just 7-6—are comfortably within reach.

The A’s look for a series win on Sunday with Chris Bassitt on the mound opposite Kansas City’s Kris Medlin at 1:05pm.

DOOLITTLE SAYS HE FINE, AND MELVIN CONCURS: Sean Doolittle pitched to just one batter, and wasn’t in his familiar closers’ role on Saturday, one day after allowing Eric Hosmer’s mammoth home run over the center field wall, just part of his early struggles that have his ERA sitting at 6.35. Melvin made it clear that his closer hadn’t been demoted, but had earned a reduced role on Saturday after working the previous two days.

Doolittle retired Alex Gordon on seven pitches to end the eighth.

He spoke afterwards, and after looking at video, and speaking to catcher Stephen Vogt, felt encouraged that he hasn’t compounded his trouble by not getting out of innings after allowing some damage. Still, he understands the anxiousness of the fans and others, especially with the team struggling and the specter of Jim Johnson’s awful April two years ago.

“Against the backdrop of what’s been happening this season, it looks way worse than it is,” Doolittle said.