Sacramento A’s Brook Rooker rounds the bases after hitting a three run home run in the bottom of the tenth against the Houston Astros at Sutter Health Park in Houston on Sun Apr 5, 2026 (AP News photo)

By Mauricio Segura

WEST SACRAMENTO–The Sacramento Athletics are determined to remind the baseball world of their potential. Coming into Sunday’s game they were 2-6, had been steamrolled 11-0 by the Houston Astros the day before, and had stumbled through the season’s first week with a .201 team batting average and the lowest on-base percentage in the majors. The A’s delivered on Sunday in ten innings with a 12-10 win on a walk off three run home run in the tenth by Brent Rooker.

Still, there were a few signs this matchup might not stay gloomy for long. The A’s had split the first two games of the series. They showed moments of brilliance both at the plate with Max Muncy being a thorn in Houston’s side, and defensively with Jacob Wilson and Denzel Clarke robbing some key extra base hits. Sunday’s performance did not disappoint.

For four innings, Jacob Lopez gave the Green and Gold exactly what they needed. The left-hander looked keyed-in, calm, and far more dangerous than he had in his previous outing at Atlanta, when he failed to record a strikeout. This time he punched out Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, and Christian Walker in the first inning alone, then kept Houston off the board through four scoreless frames. Lopez had handled the Astros well in two starts against them last season, and for most of this afternoon he looked like he had picked up right where he left off.

The Athletics had chances early but kept tripping over their own shoelaces. In the first inning, Kurtz walked and Shea Langeliers followed with a single, only for Tyler Soderstrom to bounce into a double play that killed the threat. In the third, Kurtz singled, stole second after a successful challenge, and later advanced on a pickoff error, but the A’s still could not score.

Then came the fifth, and the game finally woke up snarling. After a brief delay, Jose Altuve singled and Yordan Alvarez hammered a two-run shot to right-center to give Houston a 2-0 lead. Correa later walked, stole second, and scored on Cam Smith’s single to make it 3-0. At that point, Sutter Health Park had every reason to brace for another rotten afternoon. Instead, the Athletics flipped the table.

Max Muncy continued his punishment by starting the bottom of the fifth with a single, Jeff McNeil walked, and Carlos Cortes drove in the first run with a double to right. Then the inning turned into a full-on stampede. Kurtz walked to load the bases, Langeliers hit a fly ball that was not deep enough to score a run, and Soderstrom answered by lashing a sharp fly ball into right for a bases-clearing triple. Just like that, a 3-1 deficit became a 4-3 lead. Brent Rooker followed with a sacrifice fly to score Soderstrom and push the Athletics ahead 5-3. One inning earlier the game felt like a slog. By the inning’s end, it felt like a brawl that was just getting started.

This game had no interest of behaving like a normal lazy Sunday afternoon at the ballpak. In the seventh, Correa singled and Walker crushed a two-run homer to left-center, tying the score at 5-5. The Athletics answered again in the bottom half. Soderstrom walked, and Rooker finally uncorked the kind of swing Sacramento had been waiting for all season, blasting a two-run homer to left for a 7-5 lead. That swing carried extra weight. Rooker entered the day sitting on 99 home runs as an Athletic, and that shot made him the 30th player in franchise history to reach 100. He was not done.

The A’s kept piling on in the seventh. Lawrence Butler doubled, Muncy again, singled, McNeil dropped in a run-scoring hit, and Cortes followed with another RBI single to stretch the lead to 9-5. It should have been enough, but the baseball God’s refused to call it a day. In the eighth, Jake Meyers led off with a homer, Altuve later doubled home another run, and with two outs Cam Smith lined a single to center that scored both Altuve and Nick Allen, tying the game at 9-9. Just like that, four runs were gone and the bullpen had turned a likely win into a fresh headache.

The Athletics nearly escaped in the ninth, but Altuve made sure the Astros stayed alive by throwing out McNeil at the plate after Langeliers chopped a single through the infield. Houston then grabbed a 10-9 lead in the 10th when Correa grounded a single to left, scoring the automatic runner. Sacramento’s answer came quickly. Langeliers began the bottom half at second, moved to third on a wild pitch, and watched Soderstrom draw a walk. Then Rooker strode up again and ended the whole circus with one violent swing, launching a three-run walk-off homer to left.

It was messy, loud, uplifting, and probably bad for the blood pressure of every die-hard fan in the building. It was also exactly the kind of win the Athletics needed. They got punch from Soderstrom, spark from Kurtz, continued attack from Muncy, and a star turn from Rooker, who turned 99 franchise home runs into 101 in a single afternoon. On a day that looked ready to slide off the rails three different times, the Athletics kept climbing back on and finally rode the whole thing home.

The A’s now head east for three games beginning Tuesday the 7th against the Yankees and then a weekend series against the Mets, before returning back to West Sacramento on Monday the 13th to host the Texas Rangers for four games.

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.

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