by Jerry Feitelberg

AP photo: Oakland A’s Marcus Semien and Joey Wendle (52) celebrate win over the Kansas City Royals at Kaufman Stadium on Monday night

Kansas City, Mo- Who are these guys? They can’t be the A’s that played at the Coliseum last weekend. Those guys went 3-6 on the last homestand, and the opposing teams scored ten runs or more in four of those games. The guys wearing Green and Gold  Monday night pounded Royal pitching as they scored sixteen times and had seventeen knocks in the game and beat the defending champs, the Kansas City Royals, 16-3.

There was no scoring until the top of the third inning. The A’s Khris Davis hit his team-leading thirty-sixth home run of the season with two men aboard. He hit the ball about 447 feet. There was no doubt about it leaving the park. The lead didn’t last long as the Royals tied the game at three in the bottom of the third.

The A’s scored three more in the fourth.Singles by Bruce Maxwell, Brett Eibner and a sac fly by Joey Wendle sent Royals’ starter Dillon Gee to the showers. Ned Yost used three more pitchers in the inning, and the A’s scored two more to make it a 6-3 game. The A’s added a run in the fifth and then put the game away when they scored five times in the sixth. The big blow was struck by Marcus Semien. Semien had not homered since early August. It was a three-run job and his twenty-fourth of the season. The A’s own a huge lead 12-3. The A’s added four more in the ninth to win 16-3.

Game notes- A’s starter, Ross Detwiler pitched just four innings. He had a 1-2-3 first, but the Royals had baserunners in the next three innings, and he had a high pitch count. Lefty Daniel Coulombe pitched the fifth and sixth inning. He did not allow a hit and struck out five. Zach Neal pitched the last three innings of the game and earned a save. Coulombe was the winning pitcher, and Dillon Gee took the loss.

Every A’s hitter in the starting lineup had a hit Monday night. Joey Wendle, Danny Valencia, Ryon Healy, and Bruce Maxwell had two hits each. Stephen Vogt had three hits and two RBIs. Khris Davis and Marcus Semien hit three-run dingers.

Game two of the four-game series will be played at 4:10 pm Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. The A’s will send Jharel Cotton to the mound, and lefty Danny Duffy will go for the Royals.

31,061 fans saw the A’s club their heroes into submission.