Oakland A’s pitcher Ross Stripling works on the Pittsburgh Pirates line up in the top of the sixth inning at the Oakland Coliseum on Wed May 1, 2024 (AP News photo)

Wednesday, May 1st, 2024

By Troy Ewers

In the final game of the series, the Oakland Athletics with Ross Stripling on the mound against the Pittsburgh Pirates with Quinn Preister on the mound. The A’s took the final game of the series defeating the Pirates in a shutout in front of 4679 fans at the Oakland Coliseum. This was Oakland’s fourth consecutive win a streak that started on Sunday in Baltimore.

Oakland won the game 4-0 and Stripling got his first win since 2022. Stripling broke a 10 game losing streak with six shutout innings. Two strikeouts and only giving up three hits, Stripling survived his outing to hold off the Pirates. With the win the A’s now are 2.5 games behind first place Seattle in the AL West. The Mariners lost Wednesday against the Atlanta Braves 5-2.

The A’s had two solo home runs off Preister to put them on the board first. Abraham Toro in the second inning, his third of the season and Tyler Nevin in the third inning, with his fourth of the season, that put the A’s up 2-0 early. Nevin continued his nine game hitting streak and the A’s in this series against Pittsburgh hit five home runs. 

Toro was up again with the bases loaded and when a routine play at shortstop to end the inning resulted in an error, not only did Toro get to first safely, but a run was scored as well, 3-0 A’s.

An RBI single from Kyle McCann put the A’s up 4-0 in the eighth. McCann single drove in Esteury Ruiz, who had a stolen base while pinch-running for Toro, who got a walk to lead off the inning.

Mason Miller came in for a non-save situation and retired the Pirates in order with one strikeout, capping the series where Oakland pitching gave up three runs and 11 hits in three games. 

Next game for the A’s will be against the Miami Marlins for a three game series in Oakland. Probable pitchers for the first game on Friday, May 3rd will be JP Sears (1-2, 4.64) for Oakland and Ryan Weathers (2-2, 4.55) for Miami first pitch at the Oakland Coliseum 6:40pm PDT.