After the San Francisco Giants took the first two games of the Bay Bridge Series, the Oakland A’s had had just about enough. The visiting A’s stagnant offense finally found some life at AT&T Park this afternoon, swapping leads with the Giants all the way into extra innings. And despite the best efforts from the A’s and their bullpen, it was the two AAA call-up speedsters in Darren Ford and Emmanuel Burriss that won the game in the eleventh for the Giants, solidifying a 5-4 win and sweep of the Bay Bridge Series.
The pitchers duel that was expected turned into a battle of the bullpens as Gio Gonzalez and Jonathan Sanchez battled for six plus innings before the reliving core came in. Gonzalez lasted six and 2/3 innings, giving up two earned runs on eights hits with eight punch outs, while Sanchez only gave up one run on five hits with six strikeouts in his six innings of work.
The Giants offense struck first with a Freddy Sanchez RBI double in the first, and an Andy LaRoche throwing error scored Buster Posey in the third. The A’s offense woke up in the sixth after a Josh Willingham homer started the rally, his seventh of the year, knocking Jonathan Sanchez out of the game.
The A’s followed up with RBI’s from Coco Crisp and Daric Barton to take the lead in the seventh, then Hideki Matsui made it a 4-2 A’s lead in the eighth with a sacrifice fly. Nate Schierholtz stepped to the plate in the bottom of the eighth, and hit a high drive into right field to tie the game at four apiece, his fourth of the year.
From there the game went extra innings, and in the bottom of the eleventh inning, Darren Ford singled and stole second, setting the scene for Emmanuel Burriss. Burriss lined a shot to right field, scoring Ford from second for the game winning fifth run for the San Francisco Giants. It was Burriss’ first walk of hit of his major league career.
In all each team used six pitchers, 12 in total, with Brian Funetes (L 1-6) getting tabbed with his second loss of the series while Sergio Romo (W 2-0) used his two innings of scoreless work in extra to get the win. It marks the third sweep in a row for the Giants at AT&T Park, and are now 13-5 on the season at home. It also extends the A’s losing streak to five, who are 11-13 on the road thus far.
Full box score can be found here.
The A’s will head to Anaheim Monday to take on the Angels, while the Giants will have a day off before they host the Marlins at home starting Tuesday.
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