SAN FRANCISCO _ Lightning might struck the Bay Area on Sunday morning, but it wouldn't strike three times again in the ninth inning at Oracle Park. There was no need.
After back-to-back unlikely ninth-inning comebacks, the A's put the series sweeper away comfortably thanks to three home runs in the fifth inning, breaking open an eventual 15-3 win over the San Francisco Giants.
"For a while we were just doing enough, winning close games, getting big hits and the pitching was ruling the day," manager Bob Melvin said. "It seems the bats have woken up some."
Maybe the hot air goaded some of the A's contact throughout this Bay Bridge series, but the hard contact they made in that fifth inning was nothing cheap. They started that big inning in a 2-2 tie. They left it with an 11-2 lead.
Starter Logan Webb got the boot following a leadoff walk and out. But Chad Pinder took reliever Wandy Peralta's first-pitch fastball 112 mph halfway up the left-field bleachers for a two-run home run that broke a 2-2 tie.
The carousel kept moving. Matt Chapman singled, Matt Olson bunt-singled and Mark Canha doubled to extend the lead to 6-2. Against Dereck Rodriguez, Stephen Piscotty managed to out-distance Pinder with a 454-foot three-run jack.
"I have not seen a ball _ maybe a couple rows from the top _ but that one almost hit the concourse," Melvin said of Piscotty's third home run. "Not even in batting practice have I seen a ball go up there. It looked like it was headed for the glove (next to the Coca-Cola slide bottle)."
Marcus Semien kept the home run derby with a two-run home run to round out the A's nine-run effort.
Piscotty added two more RBIs for good measure in the sixth on a two-out double. But, he'll remember this day as the day he almost hit the giant Coca-Cola bottle beyond the left-field bleachers.
"I think he made the comment that's as far as he's ever hit a ball," Melvin said.
