Jed Lowrie singled home Cristian Pache with two out in the ninth inning Sunday as the Athletics avoided a four-game sweep with a 6-5 win over the Texas Rangers before a crowd of 8,342 at the Coliseum.
Pache, who came into the game hitting .163, opened the ninth with a single to right against losing pitcher Brett Martin (0-4). After Tony Kemp popped up a sacrifice bunt attempt, Pache went to second when Ramón Laureano hit a grounder that deflected off of Martin, who retired Laureano at first.
Lowrie then delivered the game-winner to left center as the A’s improved their record to 20-30. Texas, hoping to reach .500, instead fell to 22-24 in a game in which the Rangers made five errors.
It shouldn’t have been that close, considering the Rangers made five errors and the Athletics out-hit Texas 14-7. But the A’s were a ghastly 3-for-20 with runners in scoring position — with Chad Pinder and Lowrie delivering in the final two innings — and left 16 runners on base.
“We want that to be our identity,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “We want teams to know whether they win or lose, they know this team has fight, it has grit.”
Lowrie said he was simply trying to stay within himself and be direct to the ball, and hoped the game would make a difference for a team that had lost 14 of its previous 16 home games.
“For a team that’s trying to stay away from a four-game sweep, it’s huge,” Lowrie said.
The A’s scored the winning run in the ninth after earlier taking a one-run lead in the eighth.
Pinder, hitting for Seth Brown, drove in the tying run against reliever John King. Then, with one out, Marcus Semien, playing second base, threw a ball in the dirt with the infield in and the bases loaded enabling Laureano to score the lead run.
The Rangers tied it against Dany Jiménez, however, when the reliever uncorked a wild pitch with two out that enabled Semien to score the tying run. Jiménez (2-2) ended up the winning pitcher after blowing the save. A’s relievers Sam Selman, Domingo Acevedo, Sam Moll and Lou Trivino held Texas without a run after taking over for starter James Kaprielian.
Corey Seager and Brad Miller had solo home runs for Texas against Kaprielian, who opened the game by throwing 30 consecutive fastballs. It was the 10th for Seager and the seventh for Miller.
Kaprielian was done after 4 1/3 innings, giving up the two solo home runs and two more in the fifth inning on run-scoring singles from Miller and Semien, the latter on an 0-2 pitch driven to right field.
Semien’s hit was the end of Kaprielian’s day, with Selman, recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas Sunday, taking over.
Following four innings of abject frustration, the A’s rallied for three runs in the fifth to cut the Texas lead to 4-3.
Lowrie opened with a single, and after Brown struck out, Sean Murphy hit a ball down the line which got hung up against the wall, with Lowrie coming all the way around to score.
After Luis Barrera walked prompting the Rangers to remove starter Dane Dunning, Elvis Andrus doubled to left center to drive in the second run.
Kevin Smith attempted to squeeze home Barrera, but relief pitcher Dennis Santana fielded the ball with perfect momentum to tag Barrera before he reached the plate.
The A’s got a third run when third baseman Andy Ibáñez couldn’t field a grounder down the line by Pache for an error.
In the first inning, the A’s got a runner to third with no one out and had the bases loaded with one out and didn’t score, with Murphy striking out against Dunning and Barrera hitting into a fielder’s choice.
A two-out rally in the second and a Dunning wild pitch had runners at second and third, with Laureano striking out looking on a pitch high in the zone.
In the third, with a runner at second and two out, Barrera hit a screamer measured at 107.3 miles per hour. It went directly to Nathaniel Lowe at first base for the third out.
It got worse in the fourth. Andrus singled to lead off, Seager fumbled a potential double-play ball and Pache walked to load the bases with no one out.
The A’s again came up empty, with Kemp popping to third and Laureano hitting into a double play. At that point the A’s through four innings had left eight runners on base and were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
In the seventh, the A’s put runners on first and third with no one out and failed to score. Brock Burke struck out Andrus and Smith before Matt Bush came on to induce a popup out of Pache.
NOTABLE
— The A’s cut off a potential run in the seventh inning when Brown’s glove flip to Murphy at the plate cut Andy Ibanez down at the plate on an attempted squeeze bunt attempt by Charlie Culberson.
— Kotsay returned Sunday after watching his daughter Grace graduate from high school in San Diego Saturday.
— Pache was 2-for-4 and reached base four times.
— Pitching matchups vs. Astros: Monday–Paul Blackburn (5-1, 1.70) vs. Framber Valdez (4-2, 2.83), 1:07 p.m.; Tuesday–Frankie Montas (2-4, 3.28) vs. Cristian Javier (3-2, 2.43), 6:40 p.m.; Wednesday–Cole Irvin (2-2, 3.15) vs. Justin Verlander (6-2, 2.03), 1:37 p.m.
Source: www.mercurynews.com