Pinch hitter Jordan Diaz made his first major league home run a memorable one, belting a tiebreaking solo shot with one out in the ninth inning to give the Oakland Athletics a 5-4 win over the Texas Rangers on Friday in Arlington, Texas.
Tony Kemp added a solo homer for Oakland, which snapped a seven-game losing streak. Zach Jackson (1-1) pitched a scoreless inning for the win, and Jeurys Familia worked around a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth for his first save.
The Athletics ended the Rangers’ four-game winning streak and won for just the fourth time in their first 20 games.
Jose Leclerc retired leadoff hitter Esteury Ruiz in the ninth before Texas manager Bruce Bochy called on Will Smith (0-1) to face Diaz, who deposited a 1-2 slider over the left field fence.
Jonah Heim hit a three-run homer for the Rangers, who had two on with no outs in the eighth before Jackson retired the next three batters in order to end the threat.
Texas jumped to an early lead with four runs in the first inning against Oakland starter JP Sears. After Adolis Garcia singled home a run with one out, Josh Jung struck out before Heim delivered his blast to left-center.
Sears settled in and struck out a career-high 11 batters with two walks over six innings. He allowed four runs on five hits while throwing 101 pitches.
Oakland pushed a run across in the fourth inning against Jon Gray when Brent Rooker drew a one-out walk, moved to third on Jace Peterson’s single and scored on a fielder’s-choice grounder by Aledmys Diaz.
The Athletics pulled within 4-3 by scoring twice in the fifth inning. After Kemp snapped an 0-for-23 slump with a leadoff homer, Kevin Smith reached second base on Jung’s throwing error and was sacrificed to third before scoring on a wild pitch.
Gray was replaced by Jonathan Hernandez with two runners on and one out in the sixth. Hernandez struck out Smith before Ruiz singled, scoring Conner Capel from second.
Gray gave up four runs (three earned) on five hits with five walks and two strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings.
–Field Level Media
