“They swing at it. They’re hot right now”.
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“Chris is, as you guys know, a remarkable person”, Atkins told reporters. “He’s always done pretty well against us”, Athletics manager Bob Melvin said.
Chris Coghlan drove in three runs with a homer and Sonny Gray struck out seven as the Oakland Athletics hung on to win their sixth straight with an 8-5 victory Friday over the Toronto Blue Jays.
“It was no secret that (the offense) struggled the first seven to 10 games, ” Gray said. But we were just fighting and trying to stay afloat. “We’ve been waiting on that kind of a day”.
Tulowitzki hit his first home run of the game on the first pitch of the home fifth. But Toronto roughed up Chris Bassitt early, with two runs in the first and three in the second with Donaldson’s three-run blast dropping over the 400-foot mark in centre field.
Ryan Madson pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his seventh save of the season. Regardless, his appeal was denied before the announcement was even made, so the decision is final: He won’t be eligible to return until after the all-star break, and the Blue Jays will spend the next three months without one of their first basemen.
Snell permitted one run and two hits in five innings, striking out six and walking one. “They came out swinging, they’re a good fastball-hitting team”. Bassitt needed to throw over thirty pitches to escape the inning, as his stuff appeared to be only somewhat lacking but was highly inaccurate, missing his shots and allowing the Blue Jays to freely flutter around the basepaths via wild pitch. He has 11 hits in his past 26 at bats.
Regardless, Happ hit Khris Davis with his first pitch of the inning, leading to warnings for both dugouts by home plate umpire Paul Nauert.
Coco Crisp then doubled to bring Stephen Vogt around from second to make the score 6-1. Martin exited Friday’s game after five innings with neck spasms and Troy Tulowitzki – off to a 9 for 60 start – was held out of the lineup. Josh Thole came on defensively in the sixth. “I was informed by the players’ association that a banned substance was found in my urine”, Colabello said in a statement released by the union. The run was the first, first-inning run Happ had given up in his last seven starts. He said he felt it before the game and it got progressively worse as the evening wore on. “Bases loaded, nobody out and he gets out of it with one run”.
What we’re learning about this 2016 A’s team is that Oakland, the victor of six consecutive games, doesn’t quit, either. “Everybody loves Colabello… But I don’t think people were thinking too much about it during the game”.
Darwin Barney’s RBI single off Gray in the seventh marked the first time in six games that Oakland had allowed three earned runs. Athletics relievers had stranded a major league-best 28 inherited runners to begin the season. Schilling’s sub: Former pitcher Dallas Braden, whose brief career was notable for his flawless game against the Rays in 2010 as a member of the A’s, was named Curt Schilling’s replacement on ESPN’s Monday night broadcasts, the New York Times reported.
Blue Jays first baseman Chris Colabello – who went from Division II college ball to undrafted free agent to the independent Can-Am League to the minors to the waiver wire before finally getting his chance and finding success in Toronto in 2015 – was suspended by Major League Baseball on Friday for 80 games after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug.
Athletics: Oakland placed 3B Danny Valencia (left hamstring) on the 15-day DL and recalled INF Tyler Ladendorf from Triple-A Nashville. RHP Jesse Chavez (back) returned after missing the previous three games.
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Blue Jays: LHP J.A. Happ (2-0, 1.89) seeks to win his third straight start.
