A's Take First Two Against AL-Leading Detroit Tigers

The leadoff men of the Athletics, Nick Kurtz and Shea Langeliers, got things started early Tuesday night against Charlie Morton and the Detroit Tigers, and made one thing very clear: their offense is no fluke.

Kurtz and Langeliers went back-to-back for base hits, and then Jacob Wilson stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the first. His three-run shot to left field brought the crowd to their feet, and as he crossed home plate celebrated his home run with teammates, his second at home since returning from the injured list over the weekend in Seattle.

Charlie Morton, who is 9-10 on the year, with 130 strikeouts entering Tuesday night's contest, gave his club five innings, but also gave up five earned runs. He had seven strikeouts, and grinded through every inning he took the mound against the unrelenting A's offense.

The Tigers finally flipped the script at Sutter Health Park, as Riley Greene hit his first career grand slam in the third inning, in what would be the final inning of Osvaldo Bido's night.

Shea Langeliers picked up where he left off last night, getting two hits in the first three innings. He led off the bottom of the third running out a ball he hit to the third base side, and the dominoes began to fall from there.

Brent Rooker singled and with Langeliers on third, Tyler Soderstrom singled him home. The ability of the A's offense to keep the line moving has allowed them to keep games close and put some one-run victories in the win column, something they were not doing earlier this year.

Jacob Wilson followed suit. Although he grounded into a force out, he was able to score Rooker to give the green and gold the one run advantage after three.

Colt Keith would tie the game at five a solo home run in the top of the fifth inning off reliever Justin Sterner. That would be all for Sterner, who contributed 1 2/3 innings, allowing one hit, an earned run and one strikeout.

Hogan Harris entered from the bullpen, who Kotsay and his staff have been utilizing in different ways since the club traded away Mason Miller, and Harris has been used more recently to close games. This time, he entered in a tie game in the middle innings. He pitched a scoreless inning with a pair of strikeouts.

With the game still tied, Colby Thomas ran out a hit in the bottom of the eighth. However, mental mistakes cost the A's from using it to their advantage. An error from the Detroit infield on a pop-up from Lawrence Butler turned nearly disastrous for the visiting club.

The infield was quick to recover the dropped ball and get Thomas running to second and Butler at first, turning a potential rally into a quick 1-2-3 inning.

Headed to extras, the A's were down 6-5 after Zach McKinstry hit a RBI single to put the Tigers in front. The A's wasted no time answering back, as Soderstrom drove in Rooker from second to tie the game.

That brought up Jacob Wilson (walk), Colby Thomas (sac bunt) and Lawrence Butler (walk), who all showed patience at the plate. The A's loaded the bases for Darrel Hernaiz, who went ahead 3-0 to begin his at-bat, then walked on a 3-1 pitch, earning the A's the win on a walk-off base on balls. This team is rolling.

The A's will look to finish their dominance over the Tigers with Sunday's matchup between Luis Morales Casey Mize. and First pitch is at 7:05 PDT.