Oakland A’s manager Mark Kotsay (center) argues with plate umpire Emil Hernandez (82) after getting tossed for questioning a pitch in the top in the eighth inning at the Oakland Coliseum on Sun Aug 18, 2024 (AP News photo)
San Francisco (63-63). 000 000 100 3. 4. 9. 1
Athletics (53-71). 000 001 000 1. 2. 8 0. 10 innings
Time: 2:42
Attendance: 32,727
August 18, 2024
By Lewis Rubman
OAKLAND–The Sacramento Athletics of Las Vegas made what probably will be their last appearance of their brief 54 year tenancy of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum this warm and sunny Sunday afternoon in what Peter Gammons once correctly called the best stadium in major league baseball by falling to the San Francisco Giants, 4-2, in ten innings Sunday.
For the second time in this two game series between a pair of severely flawed teams the starting pitchers gave outstanding performances. The San Franciscan had begrudged the existence of their transbay rivals ever since Horace Stoneham colluded with Walter O’Malley to strip New York of its two National League franchises discovered that Charles Finley had bereft Kansas City of its claim to be a major league city by spiriting its representative in the American League off to the East Bay. You can call the A’s imminent departure for Sacramento and Las Vegas KC’s Revenge. This afternoon’s come from behind San Francisco victory sealed the deal.
The A’s sent JP Sears, at 10-8, 4.32 at game time, their winningest pitcher to the mound. This was his 25th start of the season. Seven of them came in July and August, months in which he went 6-1, 2.91. He performed well this afternoon, shutting the Giants out for six innings before Héliot Ramos sent an 82 mph change up 448 feet into center field to tie the game at one all.
The blast was Ramos’s 18th round tripper of the year. That was the only tally Sears allowed at the end of his 7-2/3 innings on the mound. He surrendered seven hits without a base on balls while striking out nine.
Sears also made a difficult and significant play in the top of the fourth when he turned Mark Canha’s pop between the mound and the third base foul line into a 1-3 double play. The Athletics used three other pitchers; the first two were effective.
Tyler Ferguson closed out the eighth by fanning the Giants’ DH, Jenar Encarnación, whose tenth inning home run would drive in the winning run. Mason Miller struck out two of the three batters he faced in retiring the side in order in the ninth.
It was Dany Jiménez, fresh off the injured list, who gave up three runs to the five Giants he faced in the tenth and was charged with the loss that left him 1-3, 3.65. In addition to Encarnación’s two run round tripper, his second four bagger of the year.
It traveled 399 feet into center field. Michael Conforto, pinch hitting for Casey Schmitt, who had followed Encarnación in the Giants batting order, gave San Francisco an insurance run with his 13th homer, a shot that cleared the fence in right.
The Giants took the field looking up once more at the .500 plateau and placing their hopes in the finally hitting his stride southpaw Blake Snell (2-3, 3.91 but 2-0, 0.99 with an 0.62 WHIP and opponents’ batting average of .097 in his last seven starts. He kept the A’s off the board for 4-2/3 innings, when the A’s notched their first run after Daz Cameron singled to left and advanced a base on Brent Rooker’s single to right.
After JJ Bleday’s ground out forced Rooker at second, Miguel Andújar drove in Cameron with a single to right. That run scoring play, however, ended the inning because Mike Yastrzemski’s throw cut down Bleday at third.
The Athletics loaded the bases against him with one out in the bottom of the seventh, but last year’s Cy Young winner pitched his way out of the jam. Snell continued to contain the A’s lineup unit he exited after seven innings having surrendered six hits, allowed two walks, and hitting one batter.
He notched 10 Ks, and, like Sears, had to settle for a no decision. The outing brought his ERA down to 3,67. Tyler Rogers threw a perfect eighth, and Ryan Walker gave up nothing but a single in the ninth. He got the win, making him 8-3, 2.10, after yielding two runs, neither of them earned, after zombie runner Lawrence Butler scored when Max Schuemann reached base on an error by Brett Wisely, now playing second following Conforto’s insertion into the lineup.
Sean Langliers made a spectacular catch of Yastrzemski’s safety suicide bunt attept with runners on the corners and one away in the San Francisco fifth.
The Athletics benefited from a video review of what originally had been called a second inning double by Encarnación was ruled a single and thrown out attempting to advance, The play went 7-4, Andújar to Gelof.
Schuemann;s single to left in the third frame, the Athletics’ first of the game, ended shortstop’s 16 at bat hitless streak.
Monday the 19th, the A’s will face Tampa Bay, where the Giants would have moved if Walter Haas hadn’t saved their bacon by yielding Oakland’s territorial rights in the south bay, a debt that the current Giant ownership has conspicuously failed to repay.
Right hander Joe Boyle (2-5, 7.39) will start for the A’s; fellow righty Taj Bradley (6-7, 3.49) will toe the rubber for the gang from St. Petersburg. Say what you will, the Coliseum, even in its current deteriorated condition, beats Tropicana field hands down.
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