Pinch hitter Abraham Toro drew a four-pitch, walk-off walk from reliever Eli Morgan with no outs in the bottom of the ninth inning Sunday afternoon, allowing the Oakland Athletics to avoid a four-game sweep at the hands of the visiting Cleveland Guardians with a 4-3 victory.
After catcher Shea Langeliers picked off Bo Naylor at third base on a botched squeeze play to help preserve a tie in the top of the inning, the A’s got a break when Scott Barlow (0-1) walked Ryan Noda to trigger the game-winning rally.
Singles by Langeliers and Lawrence Butler loaded the bases, bringing on Morgan, who failed to hit the strike zone with any of his four pitches.
Dany Jimenez (1-0), who survived a shaky top of the ninth, was credited with the win.
After using a three-run eighth to erase a 3-0 deficit, the Guardians put themselves in a position to go ahead in the ninth when Naylor walked and took third on Zack Gelof’s error.
But on the first pitch he saw, Gabriel Arias whiffed on a bunt attempt, leaving Naylor far enough off third base to enable Langeliers to gun him down with a perfect throw.
The Guardians, who scored 26 combined runs in three season-opening wins, were without a run in the series finale until the eighth, when Estevan Florial’s leadoff triple off A’s reliever Luis Erceg ignited a game-tying, three-run uprising.
Cleveland had only two more hits in the inning — singles by Andres Gimenez and Josh Naylor — but shortstop Nick Allen booted a potential rally-killing grounder, allowing the second run to score and setting up Naylor’s game-tying hit.
Grabbing a rare lead in the series, the A’s parlayed three early runs and seven shutout innings by Paul Blackburn to take their lead into the eighth.
Oakland wasted no time going in front. JJ Bleday tripled to bring home Esteury Ruiz, who led off the first inning with a single. Seth Brown singled in Bleday for a 2-0 lead.
Ruiz tripled and Bleday singled in the third to make it 3-0.
Blackburn made the lead stand for seven innings, limiting the Guardians to three hits. He walked one and struck out three.
Making his first start in his second stint with the Guardians, Carlos Carrasco went five innings, allowing three runs and six hits. He walked one and struck out three.
Bleday and Ruiz had two hits apiece for the A’s, who outhit the visitors 9-7.
Josh Naylor and Ramon Laureano had two hits for the Guardians in a game that featured no home runs.
–Field Level Media
