Photo credit: @Athletics

By Matthew Harrington

The Oakland A’s opened the weekend homestand against the Baltimore Orioles with a 6-4 win over the Birds friday night. The A’s rode homers from Khris Davis and Matt Olson in a four-run first inning, but needed Jed Lowrie’s RBI single in the sixth inning to pick up the win. Daniel Mengden fired five innings of three-hit, one-run ball for Oakland (16-16), but the Orioles tied the game off reliever Yusmeiro Petit in the sixth inning. Lou Trivino (2-0, 0.93 ERA) picked up the win in relief.

Adam Jones, appearing in career game 1,500 with the O’s, started the game with a solo homer for a 1-0 lead. Oakland bounced back in the bottom of the 1st though, with Khris Davis launching a three-run homer off Andrew Cashner and Matt Olson going back-to-back with a solo bomb.

Apart from Jones’ solo shot, Mengden pitched effectively outing but was pulled after five innings with 84 pitches under his belt. Petit entered the game giving up four consecutive singles to put the A’s ahead by just one at 4-3. He got the punch-out prone Pedro Alvarez for the first out, but gave up another single to Danny Valencia for a tie ballgame. Trivino came in and got a double play from Jace Peterson on just his 2nd pitch thrown.

Brad Brach, on in the bottom of the sixth after getting the last out in the fifth, saw  Stephen Piscotty reach base on a throwing error by Manny Machado. Jonathan Lucroy collected one of three hits on the night, doubling to put runners on second and third with no outs. Brach got Matt Joyce to fly out weakly, then saw his defense cut Piscotty down at the plate on a fielder’s choice, but the major’s hit leader Jed Lowrie would knock in his 31st RBI on a single to tag Brach (0-2, 5.84) with the loss. Marcus Semien would single in the insurance run in the 8th inning.

Oakland sends Trevor Cahill to the mound for Gme 2 of the series. The Orioles counter with Kevin Gausman. First pitch is at 6:05 pm PT.