A’s beat Brewers 2-1 in extra innings

The winning streak reaches four with a chance to sweep tomorrow

The A’s took game two of the series over the Brewers, beating Milwaukee 2-1 in 10 innings for their fourth straight victory, a season-high.

We had ourselves an old fashioned pitching duel early this afternoon. Right-handers Paul Blackburn and Julio Teheran got the starts for their teams today and both brought their A-game. Milwaukee had the first scoring opportunity after two singles put runners at the corners for the Brew Crew but Blackburn got a well-timed groundout to escape the early jam. It did take him 17 pitches though.

Oakland got their first chance for a run in the second. Jonah Bride got on base after getting plunked and Aledmyz Diaz tried to bring him home with a double. Milwaukee needed a perfect relay to get Bride trying to score and they executed it perfectly, nailing Bride at home and keeping this game scoreless.

It was pretty quiet for the next couple frames as Blackburn and Teheran traded zeros, with each allowing just one single. Someone would break through, but would it be the A’s or the Brewers first?

It was Oakland who got on the board to start the scoring. Back-to-back singles in the fifth put Athletics runners at the corners for JJ Bleday with one out. A groundball gave Milwaukee a chance to get out of the inning clean but this time they couldn’t get the relay done fast enough. Bleday beat the throw to first and the runner at third came in to score, giving Oakland a 1-run lead:

Blackburn needed to give the team a shutdown inning and that’s just what he did as he sat the Brewers down in order in the fifth, including his fourth and fifth strikeouts of the day. He would ultimately go one more inning and finished his day after six very strong innings.

-Paul Blackburn: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K, 95 pitches

Today we saw the Blackburn from last year, when he was an All-Star. It’s only his third start of his season but he’s looking like he’s settling in nicely into his rotation spot. Definitely need more of this from him moving forward to help stabilize the rotation.

Now it was on the bullpen to finish this win off. Righty reliever Austin Pruitt took over for the bottom of the seventh and got the first two outs before finding himself in danger. A walk, single, and stolen base put both the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position but Pruitt locked in and punched out the final batter of the inning to escape. Whew.

It didn’t go as well for the next guy out of the ‘pen. Left-hander Richard Lovelady got the first two outs of the eighth before the Brewers went with a pinch-hitter. With two outs and only four away from the win, Lovelady servered up a game-tying solo home run to William Contreras, ending Blackburn’s chance for his first win of the season.

Oakland got a runner to second in the top of the ninth to possibly retake the lead but a groundout killed that chance. Then Shintaro Fujinami did the same in the bottom half, allowing one Brewer baserunner but nothing else. And he looked good doing it:

We would need extra innings to decide this one.

Thanks to the new extra innings rule the A’s started the tenth with a runner already in scoring position. And they immediately cashed that in as Aledmyz Diaz snuck a ball into second field to bring in pinch-runner Tony Kemp:

Oakland couldn’t do anything else but they had at least retaken the lead. The bullpen would get another chance to nail this game down.

And it was Sam Long’s turn. Just like the A’s, Milwaukee got a runner at second to start the inning putting Long in a stressful situation. A huge first out failed to move that runner to third and another groundout put Oakland on the verge of victory. A flyout secured the win, the A’s fourth straight game, the first time they’ve done that since 2021.

It was a close one with a few exciting spots and a lot of tense moments. The pitching was perfect (outside of one pitch) and the bats did just enough late to support the pitching staff. Esteury Ruiz got his league-leading 31st stolen base, Ramon Laureano extended his hit streak to 11 games, and the A’s have a chance at a sweep tomorrow morning in the final game of the road trip.

It’ll be lefty JP Sears going for Oakland tomorrow, and he’ll be opposed by Freddy Peralta. Let’s get this sweep!