Photo credit: @Athletics

By Matthew Harrington

OAKLAND, Calif. — Frankie Montas continues to get it done for the Oakland Athletics, winning his third-straight start Friday night against the Kansas City Royals 7-2 at O.co Coliseum on Friday night.

The A’s hosted Pride Night at the Coliseum, and made it very clear that baseball was for everyone, regardless of their gender and/or sexual orientation.

In case you missed the celebration, you can check out the A’s team store for rainbow-oriented gear in the MLB Shop and its website.

Montas (3-0, 1.25 ERA) nearly matched his last outing, an eight-inning no-run performance against these same Royals with a duplicate performance, but a two-run homer to Mike Moustakas spoiled the shutout for the starter. Khris Davis hit a pair of homeruns for Oakland, Dustin Folwer blasted a solo shot and Jonathan Lucroy  knocked in three runs for the Green and Gold, moving the A’s two games over .500 at 33-31. Lou Trivino picked up his first career save after firing the final 1 1/3 innings.

Montas was two outs away from eight innings of shutout baseball, but a Whit Merrfield single put a runner on. Montas got Alcides Escobar to line out but couldn’t put Moustakas away after falling into a full count. Montas’ two-seamer wound up right in the middle of the plate, giving Moustakas a meatball for his 13th long ball of the year.

Montas would depart the game leading 6-2, having his full arsenal of pitches working Friday. He used his slider and offspeed pitches to rack up five strike-outs, but also used his heavy two-seamer to work deep into the game. He faced 30 batters, needing just 96 pitches to get one out away from a full eight innings. After three starts of 2018, he now sports the sparkling ERA of 1.25 runs.

Just like in last week’s win for Montas, a 16-0 win, Montas didn’t even need to be near peak performance. Khris Davis continued his torrid stretch after returning from injury. He  took Royals starter Jakob Junis (5-6, 4.05) deep twice Friday, once in the first inning and once in the fourth, to boast four homers over his last seven games and 17 on the season. Dustin Fowler also tagged Junis with a solo shot in the bottom of the 3rd inning.

Davis’ second homer in the fourth inning wasn’t the only damage the A’s would do in the frame. Leading 3-0, Jonathan Lucroy would knock in a run on a single. Two innings later, he’d tag Junis with two more runs, plating Marcus Semien and Stephen Piscotty on a double for a 6-0 A’s lead. Oakland would score an unearned run in the bottom of the eighth for the seventh run of the game.

The A’s send Chris Bassitt to the mound for his 2018 debut, hoping the young righty’s return to the rotation will go as well as recent returnees Montas and Paul Blackburn. He’ll be opposed by Danny Duffy, who sports a 5.81 ERA with six losses to just two wins.

Game time is set for Saturday afternoon at 1:05 pm PDT.