A’s Rally In 8th, Hold On For 6-4 Win Over Blue Jays

While it wasn’t the prettiest game they’ve played, the Oakland Athletics came out on top by a final score of 6-4 in Sunday afternoon’s contest against the Toronto Blue Jays.

A three-run rally in the eighth inning was the difference for the A’s, propelling them to their 66th win of the season. Alberto Callaspo came through with a two-out double that drove in two runs. Brandon Moss cranked a two-run homer earlier in the game, with Josh Donaldson and Chris Young also driving in runs to account for Oakland’s offense.

A.J. Griffin threw 5.2 interesting innings, giving up a career-high six walks with five hits, two earned runs and two strikeouts while managing to get out of a few bases-loaded situations to keep the Blue Jays from opening the game up early.

For a while, it looked like Oakland’s inability to drive in runners would continue. The A’s put two men on in the second with no outs thanks to a leadoff walk by Josh Reddick and a single by Donaldson. However, R.A. Dickey recovered to strike out Moss, and Callaspo and Stephen Vogt were retired, putting an end to a great scoring opportunity early on for Oakland.

That was followed by a messy defensive showing in the bottom of the second. Adam Lind led things off for Toronto, and he reached on an error by Brandon Moss. The first baseman couldn’t field a hard grounder, allowing Lind to get on board and move to second when Colby Rasmus drew a four-pitch walk in the next at-bat.

Next, Brett Lawrie grounded to second, and it looked like it would be a routine double play, but Eric Sogard short hopped the throw to Moss, and the ball would bounce past him, allowing Lind to score from second to give Toronto a 1-0 lead. Sogard was charged with the error — the second of the inning for the A’s, and after Josh Thole singled and Emilio Bonifacio walked to load the bases, pitching coach Curt Young came out for a visit to the mound, and Griffin induced two pop flies to end the threat.

The bottom of the fourth saw the Blue Jays load the bases once again, and Griffin walked two (one was intentional) to accumulate a total of five on the day, but he got Jose Bautista to pop out to leave the baserunners stranded and end the inning.

The A’s responded by putting men on the corners with no outs in the fifth. Callaspo dropped a blooper in front of a diving Bautista in shallow right field for a lead off single, and Stephen Vogt singled on a line drive to right on a hit-and-run to put Callaspo at third for the best scoring opportunity of the game up to that point for Oakland. But once again, the run-scoring hit didn’t come, with Coco Crisp, Sogard and Jed Lowrie all coming up short in their at-bats to end the inning.

Not to be deterred, the A’s came out swinging again in the sixth, with Yoenis Cespedes lining a ball down the left field line to start things off with a double. He’d move to third on a passed ball with Reddick batting, and following a strikeout by the right fielder, Donaldson smoked the first pitch he saw through the left side of the infield to score Cespedes and tie the game 1-1 with an RBI single.

Brandon Moss needed to see one pitch before he took a swing, but he made it count, driving a sinking knuckleball over the wall in dead center field to make it 3-1 on his 18th home run of the season. Callaspo and Vogt were retired to end the inning, but overall it was an encouraging outburst for a lineup that was dormant for most of the first five innings leading up to that point.

The Blue Jays weren’t going to just lay down, however, and they responded quickly with two runs of their own in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game. After retiring Lawrie to start things off, Griffin issued his sixth walk of the day to Thole, and Bonifacio followed it up with a single to right to put two men on for Jose Reyes.

The shortstop took a swing at a curveball up in the zone, and he got it past Moss down the first baseline to score Thole from second and cut the A’s lead down to 0ne run. Bonifacio moved to third on the play, and he’d come home on a sacrifice fly to center field by Maicer Izturis in the next at-bat to even the score, 3-3.

That knocked Griffin out of the game, with Ryan Cook coming in to finish off the inning. Griffin did an admirable job limiting Toronto to three runs, and it could have been less had the defense made a few plays to prevent a few blue Jays from reaching base.

Dickey returned to pitch the seventh, finishing his work day with a three-up, three-down inning. Cook came back out in the setup role in the bottom of the seventh, allowing only a two-out single to Lawrie before striking out Thole to finish his day after 33 pitches.

The top of the eighth figured to be the best chance for the A’s to stage a rally with the heart of the order coming up to face left-handed reliever Darren Oliver. That’s exactly what happened as they put three runs on the board after Callaspo knocked a two-out double off the left field wall, scoring Reddick and Donaldson to make it 5-3. The two reached on a infield single and a walk, respectively, earlier in the inning.

Stephen Vogt kept the effort alive by hitting a line drive back to the mound, and it deflected off of Oliver’s glove to allow him to reach first and move Callaspo to third. Chris Young didn’t let the opportunity go to waste, hitting a ball to shallow left field to bring Callaspo home and make it 6-3.

Brad Lincoln came in out of the bullpen for Toronto to retire Sogard and end the inning, but the A’s finally got the two-out rally that’s been so elusive throughout their recent skid. Sean Doolittle came in for the eighth, and after giving up a lead off walk to Rajai Davis he retired the next three batters he faced with two strikeouts.

The A’s put two more baserunners on in the top of the ninth without scoring, putting their line for the day with runners in scoring position at 4-for-15. Grant Balfour and labored a bit, giving up a lead off walk to Edwin Encarnacion, an RBI double to Lawrie, and a two-out walk to J.P. Arencibia before getting Reyes to ground out to end the game after throwing 37 pitches to earn his 30th save of the season.

Oakland will try to take the series when they return to the Rogers Centre for another day game against the Blue Jays Monday. Dan Straily will be on the mound for Oakland, with right-hander Josh Johnson getting the call for Toronto. The game will be broadcast on radio only, with an early start of 9:37 AM for west coast listeners.