The Dodgers pitcher flipped out Tuesday night during his outing against the Athletics in Oakland.
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If you’re looking for a key to this victory, let me suggest the Nos. 136 with eight games in which he is averaging.441, including eight hits in his last three games. And the A’s can only hope that two men who were supposed to pitch this year after 2013 Tommy John surgeries, A.J. Griffin and Jarrod Parker, will be healthy enough to be in the mix before general manager Billy Beane does his annual winter roster remake. Third baseman Danny Valencia brought Burns home with a fielder’s choice ground ball.
Things went differently for Butler tonight, though. Sogard lined a leadoff single to right and scored on Burns’ double to left-center.
The A’s struck first, scoring a run in the bottom of the second inning off Kershaw.
The A’s worked three-time Cy Young Award victor Clayton Kershaw hard for seven innings.
“Our starting pitcher holding us in there today, Chavez, it was just a great team win overall”, Burns said.
From there, Canha didn’t give Butler another chance to GIDP.
First baseman Mark Canha led off the inning with a double down the left-field line off right-hander Yimi Garcia, his career-high fourth hit of the game. First, he slammed the ball into the ground.
And then there was pie.
Doubront, who has bounced around this season, started with the Chicago Cubs at spring training, later being acquired by the A’s from the Toronto Blue Jays before the trade deadline, and now with a 4.22 ERA.
Beating the Dodgers on a night when Kershaw pitched made it even sweeter. “I think they knew he was fastball-cutter, but he didn’t throw too many of them today and that kind of kept them off-balance”.
“He can add a lot”, Rollins said. But he also clearly struggled to hit the zone at times, and he was fortunate that the Dodgers weren’t able to make enough contact to drive in more of the walks he allowed. That win came less than 24 hours after Oakland beat the Dodgers 5-4 in 10 innings.
After both starters were taken out of the game due to high pitch counts, the battle of the bullpens started. With a 1-1 score at stake, Pat Venditte recorded five outs and gave way to Fernando Rodriguez to finish the eighth.
Two starts ago, Chavez threw seven innings and gave up one run to beat the Astros, the American League West leader. Ellis has battled hand and knee injuries this season, limiting his playing time. The normal shutdown inning didn’t follow. Marcus Semien added a tying RBI single. “Basically because I felt I lost my job last year because I got exhausted, so to speak”.
First pitch is at 7:05pm. Smolinski hit. 320 with two home runs and seven RBIs in 11 games during his first stint with Oakland, from July 7 to August. 2. “We’ve got guys who can do that and I trust that we’re going to do that”. We can yell about him again tomorrow.
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Wood got through five innings allowing only two hits and one run; one of the hits was a bunt single.
