Toro drives the A’s to victory with 4 RBIs

The Oakland Athletics defeated the Kansas City Royals in their first game back from Big League Weekend in Las Vegas. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that is; it’s not worth your time and it clearly wasn’t worth the time of enough Vegas locals to sell out a 10,000 seat stadium.

After dropping both split-squad Vegas games, the A’s got themselves back to .500 in Spring Training with a offense-driven victory. The headliner was Oakland newbie Abraham Toro, who drove in four of the A’s six runs. The first came from a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the 2nd inning. Darell Hernaiz and Esteury Ruiz also helped drive in a couple more that inning to tie the game up at 3-3 after starter Paul Blackburn gave up a three-run homer to Nick Pratto in the top half of the inning.

Toro then grabbed the lead back with his own three-run shot, solidifying the A’s 6-3 lead and likely his spot on the Opening Day roster. Scoring on Toro’s homer were Shea Langeliers and Lawrence Butler, who each had a pair of hits and runs. Butler also had another walk after drawing a pair in Friday’s game and only one in the eight games prior. His patience at the plate will continue to be an aspect of his game to watch as he works towards a stable career in the big leagues.

Though Blackburn had a shaky outing, Sean Newcomb helped get the staff back on track with his Spring Training debut. In his two innings, he struck out twice as many Royals batters and held them scoreless. The competition for the backend of the bullpen is crowded with out-of-options players, which includes Kyle Muller, Mitch Spence, and Newcomb himself, but his effective outing today should through thrust him right back into the thick of it.

The A’s will be back at it tomorrow with another exhibition game against the reigning NL champions, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Top prospect Joe Boyle will be facing off against the Dbacks’ Ryne Nelson.