By Charlie O Mallonee

Oakland — On the night the Oakland Athletics introduced their 50th Anniversary Team, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the A’s gave the 27,665 fans a real show on the diamond. Unlike the the run-fest on Opening Day, it was an old fashioned pitchers duel on Friday as the Angels downed the Athletics 2-1.

Angels stater–LHP Tyler Skaggs–was in midseason form as kept the A’s hitters off-balance by mixing up his pitches and changing speeds. Skaggs worked 6.1-innings of shutout baseball while giving up just three hits to Oakland batters. Skaggs struck out five and walked none.

When Skaggs left the game in top of the seventh inning, he took a 1-0 lead with him to the clubhouse, thanks to Mike Trout’s first home run of the season that he hit out of the park in the top of the first.

Blake Wood worked the final two outs of the seventh and Kenyan Middleton kept the A’s from scoring in the eighth inning.

After the Angels added an insurance run in the top of the ninth, Mike Sciosia handed the ball to Blake Parker to close out the game and that is when it got interesting.

Khris Davis was A’s lead off hitter in bottom of the ninth. Davis walked. Matt Olson then hit a single through the right side of the infield moving Davis up to second. Parker struck out Stephen Piscotty and Matt Chapman.

Oakland catcher Jonathan Lucroy kept hope alive when he hit a solid single to right-center field that drove Davis home and moved Olson up to third. Parker induced Matt Joyce to ground out third to first to end the game.

Skaggs got the win and the save (just barely) went to Parker. The antacid went to Mike Sciosia.

The A’s Sean Manaea took the loss but he pitched well enough to win. Manaea pitched 7.2-innings giving up just one run off four hits. He walked none and struck out seven LAA hitters. The lefty threw 95 pitches–65 strikes. Oakland manager Bob Melvin told reporters after the game that Manaea did not want to come out of the contest when he was lifted in the top of the eighth inning.

The one blemish on the scoresheet for Manaea was the first inning home run he gave up to Mike Trout. As Melvin mentioned, after going 0-6 on Thursday Trout was overdue. Trout has now hit 14 home runs at the Coliseum in his career.

The A’s scattered seven hits divided between seven different batters. They had only one extra base hit in the game. Oakland went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base.

The A’s did not hit poorly on Friday night. They were stopped by a very outstanding performance by a starting pitcher and excellent support from two of his three relievers.

Oakland A’s 50th Anniversary Moment
The A’s played on March 30th for the first time in their history.

Opening Day Trivia
Khris Davis hit his third home run on an Opening Day as a member of the Oakland Athletics on Thursday which ties him with Dave Henderson and Terry Steinbach for the A’s record.

Matt Olson became just the fourth player in MLB history dating back to 1908 to hit an Opening Day home run on his birthday (Jeff Mathis (2011) Ian Stewart (2010) Scott Rolen (2000)).

Up Next
On Saturday the “second-coming” of Rollie Fingers, RHP Daniel Mengden will make his first start of the season for the Athletics. Mengden posted a record of 3-2 in seven starts last season with an ERA of 3.14. The Angels will counter RHP Matt Shoemaker who made 14 starts for the Halos in 2017 and finished with a 6-3 record while recording a 4.52 ERA. First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 P.M. The game can be seen on NBC-California, heard on the A’s Radio Network and en Espanol on 1010 AM and 990 AM.

The Big Reveal
The MLB debut that everyone has been waiting for will happening in Oakland on Sunday when the highly touted, two-way Japanese player Shohei Ohtani will make the start for the Angels. Game time is 1:05 P.M.