The Oakland A’s Ramon Laureano (22) gets congratulations from Matt Olson (28) after hitting a home run and returning back to the dugout in Baltimore on Fri Apr 23, 2021 (AP News photo)
By Barbara Mason
Could Friday night reveal the Oakland A’s (13-7) 12th straight win? It’s a burning question that the team will answer in Game One of their series with the Baltimore Orioles (8-11). The Orioles in the American East sit in third place. The A’s are atop the American West along with the Seattle Mariners at 13-7. The A’s are now eight short of their franchise setting record of 20 straight wins as they defeated the Orioles 3-1 at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
The players are having the time of their lives adopting the new mantra “ride the wave”. Considering the way the team started the season, this streak is a most welcome turnaround. It’s seems that it all came together at the same time; pitching, hitting and defense. A winning combination as is evident.
It was a quiet first inning although the Orioles had two men on base that were unable to score. Cole Irvin was on the mound for the A’s and Baltimore had Jorge Lopez pitching.
The bats came alive for Oakland in the second inning. Moreland and Murphy both walked. They would score to take the early lead 2-0. Stephen Piscotty and Elvis Andrus had hits in the inning. It was three up and three down for Irvin in not only the second inning but the third as well. He was having a great outing through three innings.
After five innings the score remained 2-0 in favor of the A’s. Irvin had 5 strikeouts to his credit through five.
Ramon Laureano would hit his second home run of the season in the fifth inning to extend the A’s lead to 3-0. That was all she wrote for Baltimore’s Lopez. Travis Lakins Sr. would take over on the mound. Dillon Tate would relieve Lakins to start the sixth inning for Baltimore.
Irvin got into some trouble in the bottom of the sixth inning. With the bases loaded Severino would single to left and one run would score. With the score now 3-1 Irvin would leave the game and Yusmeiro Petit would take over in a very tough situation. Petit would put out the fire and the A’s got out of the inning giving up only one run.
Neither team threatened in the seventh, eighth or ninth innings and the A’s would go onto their 12th consecutive win. Wendelken would pitch the eighth inning and Diekman would finish off the ninth inning.
It was a slow start for the A’s but Oakland got some help from Baltimore when Lopez walked Moreland and Murphy. In the first game of the series Matt Olson, Stephen Piscotty, Sean Murphy and Andrus had hits. Ramon Laureano had the only home run in this game. With that home run the A’s are tied with the Angels for most home runs this season.
First pitch in Game Two is slated for 4:00 PM tomorrow.
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