J.T. Ginn recorded his first major-league win, Mason Miller threw the Oakland Athletics’ last pitch of their Oakland Coliseum historical past, and the A’s accomplished their dwelling schedule with a 3-2 win over the Texas Rangers on Thursday afternoon.
On a celebrity-filled day by which Rickey Henderson and Dave Stewart threw out ceremonial first pitches and Barry Zito sang the Nationwide Anthem, A’s followers marked the historic occasion by recording the biggest attendance – 46,889 – in major-league historical past for a group taking part in its last sport in its dwelling metropolis. The Montreal Expos held the earlier mark of 31,395 in 2004.
The baseball gods shined on the hometown heroes, with Oakland’s three runs approaching an infield out, a sacrifice fly and a flyball misplaced within the solar.
The primary two runs got here within the third inning after the A’s loaded the bases towards Rangers starter Kumar Rocker (0-2) on an infield single by Jacob Wilson and a pair of station-to-station hits by Lawrence Butler and Brent Rooker.
JJ Bleday introduced dwelling the primary run with a fielder’s selection grounder to second, after which Shea Langeliers’ fly to deep left allowed Butler to jog dwelling.
The A’s made it 3-0 within the fifth when Wilson, who had singled and superior to second on an error by left fielder Wyatt Langford, was in a position to rating when Langford misplaced Bleday’s routine two-out flyball within the solar. The play was dominated successful, giving Bleday a second RBI.
Rocker, who additionally was searching for his first big-league win, was pulled at that time, charged with three runs on seven hits in 4 2/3 innings. He struck out two with out issuing a stroll.
The Rangers (75-84) ended Ginn’s shutout bid and knocked him from the sport within the sixth on a two-out RBI single by Adolis Garcia. Nathaniel Lowe adopted with an RBI infield out towards A’s reliever T.J. McFarland, closing the hole to 3-2.
Ginn (1-1), who was making simply his sixth big-league begin, was charged with each runs. He allowed 5 hits and two walks in his 5 1/3 innings, putting out two.
The Oakland bullpen quieted the Rangers and excited the group from there, with Tyler Ferguson and Michel Otanez combining to retire 5 of the six males they confronted earlier than Miller took over with two outs within the eighth.
The Oakland nearer stranded the potential tying run at second by getting Garcia on a comebacker to finish the eighth, earlier than throwing a 1-2-3 ninth for his twenty eighth save, after which he and his teammates stayed on the sector to salute the followers as supervisor Mark Kotsay addressed the group.
The win gave the A’s (69-90) an all-time 2,492-2,000-1 dwelling report in Oakland. The sport didn’t characteristic a house run, which means the Rangers’ Garcia will go down as having hit the final one within the A’s Oakland historical past, a third-inning blast on Wednesday night time.
Wilson and Rooker had two hits apiece for the A’s, whose earlier excessive in dwelling attendance was 37,551 for the rival San Francisco Giants in August.
Josh Smith’s third-inning double was the one extra-base hit for the Rangers, who have been out-hit 9-5.
-Area Stage Media