A’s ride five homers to 11-1 win over Dodgers

All-around good game (and Nick Kurtz’s first home run!)

The A’s arrived in Los Angeles to take on the Dodgers on Tuesday evening and started their road trip strong, beating their California rivals in a convincing 11-1 rout against the reigning World Series champions.

Los Angeles entered this series with the best record in baseball at 27-14. Left-hander Jeffrey Springs drew the start for the first game of the series, a tough task for any pitcher going up against this Dodgers lineup. He had put together back-to-back quality starts after struggling for most of April so the hope was that he could keep that roll going.

After struggling in the first two innings all season Springs shut down the top of the Los Angeles lineup for the first two frames, allowing just a leadoff walk to Shohei Ohtani in the first and a two-out double to Michael Conforto in the second.

That gave the A’s a chance to take an early lead. Facing second-year right-hander Landon Knack the A’s managed just one single from leadoff man Jacob Wilson and struck out four times in the first two innings. The club would get to him in the third inning when Wilson, in his second at-bat tonight, smacked his fourth home run of the year to give his team the early lead, a two-run shot to left:

Los Angeles would cut into that lead in the bottom half of the frame. They prevented Springs from getting a much-needed shutdown inning thanks to a double, error, and single. The 32-year-old starter was locked in from there, not allowing another Dodger run over the next four innings. When all was said and done Springs pitched seven innings of one-run ball against a potent Dodgers lineup.

–Jeffrey Springs: 7 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 102 pitches

That’s three straight quality outings for the veteran lefty and it’s beginning to feel like he’s turned the corner and is being the one pitcher that the A’s hoped they were getting this past off-season. He managed to drop his ERA down from 4.81 to 4.27, a mark he’ll take into his next start against the Giants in the Bay Area.

The offense meanwhile provided more than enough support for Springs. The fourth inning saw the Athletics put up a four-spot to give their starter plenty of cushion for error. Second baseman Luis Urias got the rally going with a leadoff single and would score two batters later when Wilson hit his second 2-run home run of the day:

What hasn’t been said about him? The team wouldn’t be where they are without Wilson’s contributions this season and he’s only just begun his career. He’d end the day 4-for-5 and his batting average now sits at .363 behind only Aaron Judge and Freddie Freeman.

The rally continued. Unable to stop the bleeding Knack was chased from this game after allowing another single to the next batter. Another hit put runners in scoring position and Lawrence Butler made them pay with a huge 2-run double to push the lead to 6-1:

The rally was over but the scoring was not! The A’s added on in the seventh when Miguel Andujar snuck an RBI single under the shortstop’s glove and JJ Bleday blooped his own RBI single to center to extend the lead to 8-1:

The outcome of the game was just about over at that point but the A’s bats weren’t done yet. We got a memorable home run in the eighth inning when top prospect Nick Kurtz finally launched his first career major league home run, an oppo taco over left-center field wall:

Hopefully the first of many! It took him a while to get it but in his 57th at-bat he finally collected his first big fly. He’s now hitting .281/.328/.404 in his first month as a big leaguer.

And just to add on a bit more the Athletics went back-to-back in the ninth as Andujar launched his third homer of the year…

… while Bleday hit his sixth of the season:

That’s a great all-around win right there. Five home runs powered the offense while Springs held down a dangerous Dodgers lineup for seven full frames. Add in Nick Kurtz’s first career home run and it was an overall successful night. The team now stands at 22-20 and in sole possession of second place in the AL West. The series continues tomorrow evening when rookie right-hander Gunnar Hoglund takes on foreign phenom Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Can the A’s execute a repeat performance of tonight? Tune in to find out tomorrow!