The Oakland A’s redeemed a gutting loss on Tuesday with a dicey 12-10 win over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday with a season-high 18 hit game.
Andrew Chafin came in the ninth inning, the A’s up 12-9 with a save opportunity. Kansas City loaded the bases with no outs and scored a run on a ground out, but escaped the inning with a strikeout and a ground out.
Elvis Andrus and Josh Harrison collected multi-RBI games. Andrus’ two-run single in the second inning erased an early Royals 1-0 lead. Harrison’s two-run single in the fifth inning added some much-needed runs as Kansas City began to chip away at Oakland’s lead. He’d score another in the seventh inning.
Matt Olson hit an opposite field, two-run home run not only marked his 35th home run of the year and first career 100 RBI season to make it 5-1 in the fourth inning.
The Royals, fresh of a late comeback against the A’s on Tuesday, tried to repeat their effort against Sean Manaea.
With a four-run lead in the fourth inning, Manaea caved, allowing three runs on two singles after loading the bases with no outs. A difficult double play turned by Josh Harrison at third base — in for an injured Matt Chapman — to Tony Kemp at second put an end to the ugly inning.
After giving up a solo home run to Salvador Perez, Manaea would gut out five innings on 101 pitches with five runs allowed on nine hits. Because of the bats, he’d escape with a lead.
The offense kept did their part to eliminate possibility of another blown lead by increasing the lead. In the seventh, Harrison, Starling Marte and pinch-hitter Khris Davis added four runs to the A’s lead to make it 12-5.
Lou Trivino looked strong in two innings of relief. He allowed a run in the seventh inning, but struck out five with a deadly changeup on hand.
But the lead wasn’t safe. Jake Diekman allowed three runs in the eighth inning and the Royals cut the A’s lead to 12-9 on Andrew Benintendi’s fifth hit, a two-run single on an 0-2 pitch. He was pulled with two outs, two on for Chafin, who drew a pop up to end the inning.
