Matt Olson might have had only one good eye, but he was seeing the ball clearly in his anticipated return to the lineup.
Olson suffered a gruesome eye injury in the batting cages when a ball ricocheted off the L-screen off his eye on Thursday that kept him out of the lineup for the A’s last three games. He sported a black eye in his return and, along with Ramón Laureano, ignited a flat A’s offense to a 7-5 win on Sunday to avoid a sweep at Baltimore’s hands.
Olson went 3-for-5 with a shift-beating single in his first at-bat that, with some Orioles errors, scored Ramón Laureano from first. Olson’s two-run home run gave the A’s a 4-2 lead in the third inning. Olson doubled in his third at-bat in a fruitless fifth inning.
The Olson show turned into the Ramón Laureano show late. With the game tied 5-5 in the eighth, his acrobatic catch at the top of the left-center wall to rob DJ Stewart of an extra-base RBI in the eighth inning kept the game knotted up. His opposite field two-run home run in the eighth inning gave the A’s their lead.
Sean Manaea broke his four start streak of allowing two-or-fewer runs, allowing four in five innings with five strikeouts. Freddy Galivs’ RBI single in the second inning and Austin Hays’ home run. Trey Mancini’s two-run double in the fifth inning erased the lead gained on Olson’s home run.
Mancini gave the Orioles the lead in the seventh with a two-out RBI single. A costly error from Elvis Andrus on a potential double-play ball extended the inning early. It was the first run scored on reliever Jake Diekman’s watch in eight games, though the run was unearned.
While the A’s, particularly Olson, found some success against Orioles left-handed starter Bruce Zimmermann, had trouble cracking a bullpen that entered the series finale with a fifth-ranked 2.89 ERA. The A’s found some light in the seventh when Matt Chapman turned on the jets to score from second on Jed Lowrie’s infield single, tying the game 5-5.
Breaking records: Mark Canha was hit by a pitch for a 60th time in his A’s career, this one courtesy of Orioles starter Zimmermann. Hit-by-pitch No. 60 broke Sal Bando’s record for most hit-by-pitches in Oakland A’s franchise history.
Errorless Piscotty: Stephen Piscotty holds the Oakland record for consecutive errorless games in the outfield with 210. He surpasses Ryan Sweeny, who went errorless from Aug. 17 2009 to Sept. 14, 2011. Piscotty’s streak began in July 2018.
