Sacramento A’s Lawrence Butler (left) steals second base as the Kansas City Royals second baseman Jonathan India (6) tries to put the tag on too late in the bottom of the second inning at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento on Fri Sep 26, 2025 (AP News photo)

Athletics Walk Off Royals in Dramatic Finish

By Mauricio Segura

WEST SACRAMENTO–The Sacramento Athletics finished Friday night’s game into a cinematic thriller, clawing back from an early three-run hole and delivering a walk-off 4-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals.

For eight innings, it felt like a strategic chess game with the pawns wearing spikes. Long stretches of scoreless ball punctuated by flashes of daring baserunning and systematic pitching changes. In the end, the Green and Gold found a way to finish what they started.

Kansas City struck first, roughing up the A’s starter in the top of the fourth with a three-run burst that briefly silenced the Sacramento crowd. The A’s offense had been held quiet until the bottom of the fifth, when the lineup finally cracked the Royals’ early momentum.

Lawrence Butler, a sparkplug all season, set the tone with his 22nd stolen base. That moment of aggression on the bases rattled the visitors and seemed to wake up the dugout. A series of timely swings and a wild pitch by Taylor Clarke brought three runs across, tying the game and wiping out the Royals’ early advantage.

Managerial maneuvering became the story from that point forward. The A’s sent Carlos Cortes up as a pinch-hitter in the fifth, and when he stayed in the game as the right fielder, it signaled Sacramento was not content to just trade zeroes.

The Royals countered with a carousel of relievers, including Hogan Harris, Jonathan Bowlan, and finally Angel Zerpa, trying to keep the home side in check. The Athletics kept matching those moves, using pinch-hitters like Max Muncy in the eighth and defensive substitutions in the late innings to keep fresh legs on the field.

From the sixth inning on, the scoreboard barely budged. Both bullpens locked in, each frame turning into a tense exercise in stranded runners. The outfield even got a late-game shuffle with Mike Yastrzemski moving from center to right, while the Royals inserted John Rave to cover center field. Every pitch after that felt like it carried the weight of the night.

By the time the ninth inning rolled around, the game was still knotted at three. That is when the home side decided to settle things. With Luinder Avila now on the mound for Kansas City, the A’s capitalized on a perfectly timed pinch-runner swap, Max Schuemann replacing Brett Harris, to inject speed and pressure. The gamble paid off as Sacramento pushed across the decisive run, sending the crowd into a frenzy and sealing a satisfying 4-3 walk-off victory.

The box score might tell you it was a game of four runs and a handful of substitutions, but the feel inside Sutter Health Park told a different story. It was a night defined by raw grit and refusal to play standard baseball in hopes it would pay off. No, tonight, Mark Kotsay put all the pieces in place unsing outside the box strategy and declared checkmate because of it.

The Green and Gold left the field to the roar of fans who have quickly made Sacramento feel like home for big-league baseball. For a franchise carving a new chapter in a new city, moments like this walk-off win offer a taste of the drama and energy they will need to keep the momentum rolling.

Starting pitchers for Saturday: For the Royals RHP Michael Wacha (9-13 ERA 4.00) for the A’s RHP Luis Morales (4-2 ERA 3.07) first pitch 1:05pm PT at Sutter Health Park.

Costa Rican-born Mauricio Segura has been covering sports in the Bay Area since 2001 for a variety of magazines and newspapers, as well as his own publication, Golden Bay Times.