Oakland Athletics make their way through 2-1 win over Kansas City Royals – MLB Update
In game dominated by quality pitching on Wednesday, June 15, Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals 2-1 at O.co Coliseum.
Josh Outman, helped by two relievers at the end, pitched seven innings and allowing only four hits and did not allow any runs.
"We took advantage of just about every chance we could get," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "It was a well-pitched game on both sides.
"It's always nice to win at home and get a lot of the first out of the way," said Melvin, who is 2-4 since Bob Geren was fired. "First win on the road, home and all that so we can put all that past us and start winning ball games."
Josh Outman’s rival, Luke Hochevar, was no less stringent and kept the Oakland hitters at bay throughout the innings whereby the two battled to contain the respective teams’ offence. The two succeeded well until Hochevar finally found himself in trouble
in the sixth inning.
Once he came to pitch in the inning that would be expected to be similar to other innings, Cliff Pennington charged his fastball and singled to centre to finally put an end to the drought of runs and give Oakland a 1-0 lead.
Hochevar’s three-hits and a run pitching did not lead to a predictable change in the pitching line-up. The team manager stuck to him and the seventh inning once again brought different news for the Athletics, who now seemed determined to change the map of
the game.
Luke gave up two hits in the inning, one of which was executed to perfection by Daric Barton who singled to left centre to double the Athletics lead and compounding both Hochevar and the Royals’ difficulties.
Once Outman was relieved in the eighth inning, as he had pitched seven scoreless innings, Brian Fuentes was taken to task by Alex Gordon of the Royals. Fuentes gave up three hits in the inning which culminated with Gordon’s single, bringing the Athletics
lead down to 2-1.
However, Andrew Bailey did not falter in the ninth inning once he was tasked with pitching. The reliever pitched a hitless and scoreless inning to perfect the 2-1 victory for the Athletics, which also happened to be the team’s first win at O.co Coliseum
since the May 29.
The three-game series now stands level at 1-1 whose decisive encounter shall be played on Thursday.
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