In the Better Late Than Never Derby, Athletics are Much Better with Another Huge Win
For the last two seasons, the A’s have been defined by the second half of the season.
From mid-June on, they owned the best record in the Major Leagues, both in 2018 and 2019.
This year, they’re being defined by the second half of the game.
Down 6-0 and held to one hit by Johnny Cueto for six innings Friday night, the A’s struck for five runs in the ninth inning to force extra innings on Stephen Piscotty’s second ninth-inning grand slam of the season.
Then the A’s pulled off an improbable 8-7 win in 10 innings with Mark Canha’s sacrifice fly producing the go-ahead run and Liam Hendriks coming out of the bullpen for the save, striking out the side.
The A’s have simply owned the late innings, starting on opening night, when Matt Olson’s walk-off grand slam gave Oakland a 10-inning win over the Angels. On Aug. 4, Piscotty hit a walk-off slam in the ninth inning. Three days after that came a 13-inning win after the A’s hadn’t scored for the first six innings.
And then there was Friday. Olson homered with one out for 7-3, then Piscotty became the first player in A’s history with two ninth-inning grand slams in the same season, one of just 14 players ever to have done that.
Of course, it wasn’t all A’s. Giants first baseman Wilmer Flores fielded a Robbie Grossman grounder and should have touched the first base bag for the second out. Instead, he threw to second base, where Tony Kemp beat the throw. And then Khris Davis, batting with two on, got hit by a pitch in the shoulder. And just like that, the A’s had the tying run at the plate.
Trevor Gott threw back-to-back sliders. Piscotty was fooled by the first. He crushed the second, pulling the A’s into a tie.
“It had me fooled,” Piscotty said of the first pitch. “I think you might have seen that. There was a chance he would throw that again when you see a hitter kind of take a pitch like that.”
Piscotty hammered it, but he wasn’t sure it was out until it actually cleared the wall.
“I did, but it barely got out,” he said.
An inning later, Matt Chapman was the runner starting the inning at second base. Olson moved him to third with a grounder and Canha hit a fly ball medium-deep to right, Chapman scoring easily. After that, Hendriks struck out the side in the ninth to run the A’s overall record after 20 games to 14-6 – the best since the 1990 A’s started 15-5 – and to 4-0 in extra innings.
There was even a little bit of history in this one. The A’s hadn’t won after being down five runs in the ninth inning since July 15, 1952. Eddie Joost hit the game-winning grand slam, and it came off Hall of Famer and Negro Leagues legend Satchel Paige.
How is it, exactly, that the A’s are able to do so much damage in the late innings? Melvin, for one, isn’t quite sure, but he’s got some ideas.
“You know, it didn't look good,” Melvin said in looking back at the ninth with his team down 7-2. “You get a couple guys on board, and you just never know.
“And then the at-bats got pretty good, as they typically do for us late. And, you know, then Stephen hits a salami, which we've seen him do this year to walk off. That put the momentum squarely back in our dugout was huge.”
As for all the grand slams – three of them in 20 games, two of them in the ninth inning from Piscotty and Olson’s 10th-inning blast in the opener – that’s a little more difficult to explain.
“It’s not just (hitting) them, it’s the magnitude of them, too,” Melvin said. “There are two walk-offs and one here that ties the game on the road in the ninth. I can’t explain it. You just try to get the pitcher on the defensive.
“Then it’s the pitcher who is the one in trouble. And sometimes you have to remind yourself of that.”
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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