Photo courtesy of Oakland A’s. Nick Allen stands ready at the plate (taken on 3/26/24).

By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)

SAN FRANCISCO- The Oakland Athletic’s closed out their Spring Training schedule on Tuesday night at Oracle Park against their cross-bay rival the San Francisco Giants.

The first game of this two-game series went the Giants way as they snagged a 4-1 victory with Tom Murphy homering twice for San Francisco.

On the bump for the A’s was 30 year old right-hander Paul Blackburn, who has been dominant so far in Spring Training, boasting a 3-0 record with a 2.04 era.

In tonights game that run of dominance would not stop for Blackburn who pitched 5.2 innings only giving up two hits and no earned runs. On top of that he struck out six which is extra impressive considering he faced a Giants lineup that looked similar to how it will look opening day.

The offense tonight for the A’s came in spurts with the first spurt coming in the third inning when J.D. Davis got Carlos Perez home on a ground out.

Oakland tacked on to that lead in the following inning when Estuery Ruiz hit a sacrifice fly to get Lawrence Butler home this time.

The last run in this game came for the A’s off the bat of Nick Allen who unsurprisingly also hit a sac fly to get Butler home once again.

Vinny Nittoli was called on to close out this game for the A’s and he did not make things easy on himself. It started with him giving up a single to Pablo Sandoval and then a double to Wilmer Flores. Joey Bart then knocked home a run but after that Nittoli was able to settle down and retire the next two batters to end the game.

Blackburn takes the win in this one improving his record to 4-0 while Blayne Enlow is credited with the loss.

The Oakland A’s will now turn their attention to the regular season when they’ll play the Guardians on opening day in Oakland at 7:07 p.m. At the moment the projected starter in that game for the Athletics is left-hander Alex Wood.