Against one of the game’s great young talents on the mound, the A’s had to get a little old school.
The game was scoreless until the sixth inning and the A’s sacrificed a few outs to scrape a run against Los Angels Angels starter Shohei Ohtani, pulling away with a 3-1 win on Friday night in Oakland. The win was manager Bob Melvin’s 798th, tying Tony La Russa for most in Oakland A’s history.
Elvis Andrus was responsible for two of the three total hits off Ohtani. The second ignited a scrappy rally, of sorts. Mark Canha was hit by a pitch and a Tony Kemp sacrifice bunt advanced the runners into scoring position. Ohtani had nearly clipped Canha’s head in a previous at-bat, prompting Canha to throw some choice words at the pitcher in a meager bench clearing situation. Ohtani crumbled on the mound when he actually hit Canha on the back, but Canha took his base without a glance.
It set the table for Matt Olson’s sacrifice fly to give the A’s a 1-0 lead.
Sean Manaea had matched Ohtani out-for-out, but some bad luck hit in the seventh. Jose Rojas’ fly ball found grass in no mans land and Kurt Suzuki’s sacrifice bunt advanced him to second. David Fletcher, known to make contact with any pitch — good or bad — singled into left field to tie it 1-1 and knock Manaea out of the game.
Ohtani’s third hit allowed came in the seventh. He couldn’t find the strike zone, issuing back-to-back walks to Jed Lowrie and Mitch Moreland, both came back to bite. Matt Chapman, hitting seventh in the lineup with a .209 average, singled to right field to score Lowrie and force Ohtani out of the game.
Sean Murphy singled off reliever Steve Cishek to give the A’s a 3-1 lead.
Yusmeiro Petit finished the seventh inning and pitched a hitless eighth. His seven wins are tied for first in the American League.
