SAN DIEGO _ It took the San Diego Padres bringing in their best pitcher, but the Oakland A's offense finally broke through.
Jed Lowrie provided the pivotal blow in the 10th inning with a two-run shot to right field off Adam Cimber to put the A's ahead by two runs for the eventual 4-2 win Tuesday night, but that would not have been possible had it not been for the heroics by Stephen Piscotty an inning before.
Facing Brad Hand, the closer who is likely to represent the Padres at this year's All-Star game, Piscotty was down to his final strike.
After Hand leaned over the rubber a good while and figured out what to throw, Piscotty appeared to guess right on the pitch he wanted, launching a 2-2 fastball well up the bleachers in left field for a no-doubt solo home run to tie the game with two outs in the top of the ninth.
Hand had converted his past 15 saves opportunities in a row entering the night, but that was not so impressive for Piscotty, who was 4 for 6 for his career with a double against the right-hander before the game-tying home run.
After following up a terrific start with the worst of his career, Paul Blackburn's third start back from the disabled list was somewhere in the middle.
The right-hander did his best to keep the A's in the game, allowing just two runs on four hits and two walks with four strikeouts before departing after five innings of work.
A golden opportunity for the A's dissolved quickly in the second inning. They had Padres starter Eric Lauer on the ropes, loading the bases with no outs, but Piscotty came up and grounded into a double play. While the double play brought home a run to tie the game, Blackburn later grounded out as Lauer had limited the damage to just the one run.
Not only did the A's let Lauer off the hook in the inning, they allowed the left-hander to settle in as he allowed just the one run, which was unearned because of an error, on just three hits and two walks and struck out seven batters over six innings.
Khris Davis nearly gave the A's the lead with a runner on in the eighth as he crushed a pitch from Kirby Yates deep to right field that would have probably gone out at 29 other ballparks and put the A's ahead 3-2. But at Petco Park, it was just a flyout to the wall.
