Los Angeles Angels Shohei Ohtani swings for a broken bat single in the seventh inning Oakland A’s catcher Sean Murphy watches at Angels Stadium in Anaheim on Sat Sep 18, 2021 (AP News photo)

A’s Continue To Roll Past Angels

By Barbara Mason

After holding on in a very tight game, the Oakland A’s beat the Los Angels Angels in game one of their three game series 5-4. The bullpen, which has really been struggling, had a great game.

In tonight’s game the A’s had James Kaprielian starting the game and the Angels had Jose Suarez on the mound. His ERA is 3.59 and Kaprielian is a 3.83 ERA. The A’s took game two of the three game series on Saturday night 3-1 at Angels Stadium in Anaheim.

The first inning was a very productive one for the A’s. The one thing that we did not see in last night’s game was the long ball and Matt Olson took care of that in his first at bat. He had a solo home run followed by a Mark Canha walk, a Chad Pinder double and a Matt Chapman double. When the dust had settled the A’s had an early 3-0 lead.

The pitching rose to a new level as both pitchers dismissed batters right and left. Both players had very nice performances through six innings.

Due to pitch count Suarez came out of the game in the sixth inning and was relieved by Oliver Ortega who finished off Oakland in the inning.

After six full innings Oakland held their 3-0 lead. There was not a lot of offense for either team after that first inning.

In a surprising move Deolis Guerra came in to relieve Kaprielian in the bottom of the seventh inning. Kaprielian would have faced Ohtani who had already flied out and struck out. Guerra gave up a hit to Ohtani in the seventh inning in Shohei’s third at bat. An apparent double play was reversed and there were two out and two on in the bottom of the inning for the Angels.

Los Angeles did get one run in the inning after the reversed call. The A’s were a bit unnerved after that call. The entire team had left the field when the double play was called by the ref. They managed to pull it back together allowing the one run and still led 3-1 going into the eighth inning.

In six innings Kaprielian allowed two hits and in one inning Guerra allowed three hits. With 90 pitches it would seem that Kaprielian had one more inning in him. The Oakland bullpen had to get through two more innings for their second win of this series.

It was a very nervous ninth inning with the bases loaded for the Angels. With two outs Josh Harrison would leap up and catch a line drive to end the game. This was a critical catch for the A’s. If Harrison doesn’t make that catch this game is tied so a great game for Oakland.

The A’s will play an afternoon game tomorrow in the final game of the series. First pitch is scheduled for 1:07. Frankie Montas will be on the mound for Oakland and in a surprise Shohei Ohtani has the nod for the Angels. His sore arm has healed in record time and so this will be a great matchup.