OAKLAND, Calif. _ Marcus Semien, the longest-tenured member of the Oakland A's with Sonny Gray now a New York Yankee, said he was ready to lead his younger teammates by example with his play on the field.
If they can all follow the one he set on Monday night, the A's are in pretty good shape for the future.
Semien blasted a 1-1 pitch from George Kontos over the left field wall for a grand slam in the sixth inning to put the A's ahead 6-3 in an eventual 8-5 victory over the San Francisco Giants in front of 38,391 fans at the Coliseum for the first game of the Bay Bridge Series.
It was Semien's fourth home run of the season and his first grand slam with the A's. The slam that sent A's fans into hysteria was set up earlier in the inning after a pair of walks from Bruce Maxwell and Matt Joyce, and a pinch double by Rajai Davis off the left field wall that nearly left the yard.
Rookie Paul Blackburn surrendered a run in the first and two in the fourth, but he was able to limit the damage both times and appeared to be settling in. After facing the minimum for the next two innings, he ran into more trouble in the seventh.
Blackburn allowed a lead off double to Carlos Moncrief and a single to Gorkys Hernandez, with a fielder's choice sandwiched in between to put runners on first and third with only one out. The single by Hernandez put Blackburn at 98 pitches and was enough to summon manager Bob Melvin from the dugout to make a change.
Daniel Coulombe came on in relief and made things a little tighter as he only recorded one out and allowed two runs to shrink the A's lead to a run. In danger of a total meltdown, Liam Hendriks came on and struck out Buster Posey to strand runners on first and third and keep Oakland ahead 6-5.
Trailing 1-0 before they ever even got a chance to bat, the A's wasted no time taking the lead. After Joyce led off with a walk, Semien and Jed Lowrie came up with back-to-back singles off Matt Cain to tie the score at 1-1. Khris Davis then drove in Semien with a sacrifice fly to left field, giving the A's two runs in their first four at-bats and a 2-1 lead.
The A's added a couple of insurance runs in the eighth on a two-run single by Ryon Healy.
Blake Treinen came on in the ninth inning and recorded the final three outs to earn his first save with the A's.
