Photo courtesy of Oakland A’s.

By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)

OAKLAND- The A’s closed out their home series against the Twins on a sour note as they lost by a 5-4 final.

Getting the start for the A’s was J.P. Sears while for the Twins Joe Ryan was on the mound to start.

The first inning went by with no runs scored until the bottom of the second when Jordan Diaz launched a pitch over the left field wall getting his sixth home run and making it a 1-0 game.

The first four innings for Sears couldn’t have gone much better as Sears struck out five hitters.

In the fourth Oakland tacked on another run as with Zack Gelof on third Diaz got him home with a sacrifice fly. Adding to their lead Aledmys Diaz doubled on a line drive to left field that brought home JJ Bleday making it 3-0.

The next inning saw Minnesota start a rally as Christian Vazquez homered to left center field making it 3-1. Not to be outdone Alex Kirilloff followed that up with a home run of his own to a similar spot on the field bringing the A’s lead down to one.

In that same inning Ryan was relieved as the Twins brought in Jorge López in relief. Ryan finished with 5.1 innings pitched, three earned runs, and seven K’s.

The seventh saw the A’s go to the bullpen as Sears was finally relieved by Lucas Erceg. Sears finished with a fantastic line as he pitched 6.1 innings, gave up three earned runs, walked no one and struck out seven.

Erceg would have a less than favorable outing as he gave up a double to Kirilloff that knocked in three runs making it 5-3. He was yanked after giving up the runs and replaced by Shintaro Fujinami who finished out the inning.

The A’s were quick to respond as Gelof doubled in the seventh bringing home one run and making it 5-4.

That was all the runs Oakland could muster as the score finished at 5-4 bringing the Twins record to 48-46 and the A’s record to 25-70.

The A’s next game will be tomorrow where they’ll kick off a three game home series against Boston at 6:40 p.m.