CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Guardians did it to the A’s again.
A night after rallying from 2-0 and 4-2 deficits to beat Oakland 8-4, the Guardians rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth to stun the A’s 3-2, handing them their 10th consecutive loss Friday night at Progressive Field.
Luke Maile’s sacrifice fly to right field in the bottom of the ninth scored Oscar Gonzalez from third and capped the three-run inning to give the Guardians their ninth win in their last 11 games, improving the club to 28-26 on the season.
“There’s nothing like it,” Maile said of the celebration that followed. “I can’t think of a better feeling than maybe winning a playoff game or something like that but there’s no better feeling. It’s awesome.”
It was the second walk-off victory of the campaign.
Including Friday night, the Guardians, who have the youngest team in baseball, have outscored opponents by 34 runs from the seventh inning on this season.
“We just have a lot of guys that constantly have great at-bats,” Maile said. “When you have to face that type of a lineup three and four and sometimes five times, eventually it’s going to catch up with you. It doesn’t happen every night, but I think that’s why. We haven’t scored the entire game but eventually it’s going to catch up with he other team and it proved again to be true tonight.”
No one was happier to see A’s starter Paul Blackburn leave the mound after eight shutout innings than Cleveland’s young club.
“He put on a clinic tonight,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said. “In this era where you see fastballs, he used four pitches and really looked like a veteran out there pitching.”
Jose Ramirez, who had two of Cleveland’s four hits off Blackburn, greeted Oakland reliever Dany Jimenez with a solo homer to right field to lead off the bottom of the ninth, his 16th of the year and 56th run batted in.
“He’s not bad, is he,” Francona joked. “He’s dangerous every time he gets up there.”
Josh Naylor followed with a walk. Oscar Gonzalez doubled giving him hits in 12 of his first 13 major league games and Andres Gimenez was intentionally walked to load the bases.
Owen Miller tied the game with a sac-fly to center scoring Oscar Mercado, who pinch ran for Naylor, from third. Steven Kwan hit an infield single to short to reload the bases with one out.
“Honestly we were happy when Blackburn came out of the game,” Miller said. “He pitched well tonight. You could tell he had us off balance so to see a new arm in there was good to see.”
Gimenez was the unsung hero after hustling to beat the throw at second, preventing the second out and setting up Maile’s heroics.
Blackburn, who entered the night boasting a 1.14 ERA on the road this season, was every bit as tough as his 5-2 record indicated as he threw eight brilliant shutout innings allowing just four hits – two of those Ramirez, who reached third base in the opening inning.
No one got past second the rest of the night for Cleveland with Blackburn, who threw 101 pitches, on the mound.
Tristan McKenzie started for the Guardians and did not factor in the decision after allowing two earned runs in six innings on five hits with six strikeouts, two walks and a pair of wild pitches.
“Kind of a weird game,” Francona said. “You look up, gave up two solos again, but that’s it. If we can eliminate that [because] it’s happened a couple games where that’s the only thing he’s given up. You look up and it’s the sixth inning and only two runs. That’s pretty good.”
Reliever Anthony Gose picked up his first victory of the season in relief after throwing a scoreless ninth.
A’s left fielder Seth Brown gave Oakland a 1-0 lead with his sixth home run of the season in the top of the first. Catcher Sean Murphy also hit his sixth homer of the season in the top of the second.
Nick Sandlin relieved McKenzie to begin the seventh. Sandlin and Trevor Stephen also threw scoreless innings for the Guardians.