Seth Brown hit a seventh-inning grand slam Saturday to help assuage two weeks of misery Saturday, igniting a late offensive explosion in a 10-5 road win against the Cleveland Guardians.
The win snapped a 10-game losing streak, improving the A’s record to 21-40. It was their first win since May 29 in Oakland against Texas. Cleveland dropped to 28-27. Frankie Montas (3-6) was credited with his first win since April 18 although he’s had better games. Montas gave up five earned runs in six innings.
The Athletics’ bullpen made the lead stand up, with Domingo Acevedo pitching the seventh, A.J. Puk the eighth and Dany Jimenez the ninth.
The home run was Brown’s seventh of the season, and the A’s weren’t done as Stephen Vogt hit his second home run in the eighth and Christian Bethancourt and Sean Murphy homered in the ninth. It was Bethancourt’s third home run and Murphy’s seventh.
Brown’s therapeutic blast came against losing pitcher Eli Morgan (2-2).
The A’s had already scored once in the inning, courtesy of a throwing error by first baseman Andy Naylor attempting to get a lead runner at second base. Morgan then narrowly missed a 2-2 pitch on the inside corner for a called third strike against Brown that would have ended the inning.
Instead, Brown jumped all over a full-count fastball and drove it into the right-field stands. Brown was 0 for 10 in his career with the bases loaded before the breakthrough.
Montas sailed into the third inning having not given up a run on 27 pitches, but left a couple of pitches up in the zone while ahead in the count and was victimized by his own defense as Cleveland scored four times.
Amed Rosaro hit an 0-2 pitch for a single, with Jose Ramirez hitting a bouncer to right on a 1-2 pitch. Rosario was running to third, and Ramon Lauraeno pumped, then threw high to cutoff man Tony Kemp, and Ramirez came around to score.
With the infield in, Josh Naylor hit a bouncer to Bethancourt at first, who couldn’t get Ramirez at the plate to tie the score 2-2. The Guardians added a sacrifice by Owen Miller and a bunt single to bring in a fourth run by Richie Palacios.
The Guardians increased the margin to 5-2 with an RBI double from Miller against Montas in the sixth.
The Athletics reached their familiar 2-0 cushion against Guardians starter Zach Plesac in the fourth inning when Matt Davidson’s opposite-field single to right brought home Elvis Andrus, who hit a two-out double.
In the first inning Plesac was catching a lot of the strike zone but ended up giving up just a single run when Bethancourt’s 110.2-mph drive banged off the fence and brought home Kemp.
Kemp opened the inning with a 90.8-mph double to left-center and Laureano hit a 102.8-mph smash to short that Rosario turned in to an out.
The inning ended when Murphy hit a drive to the fence in right-center at 104.8 mph.
