The A’s fell behind early but rallied back with six runs in the 6th inning to stun the Los Angeles Angels in an 8-4 victory Wednesday, completing a three-game sweep at the Coliseum.
For the first couple innings, this looked like it might be an afternoon finale snoozer.
His first pitch of the game was launched high off the jagged edge of the wall for a double that could just as easily have been a homer, and then a parade of four singles sent three runs across the plate.
Meanwhile, Oakland’s lineup went down in order the first time through, notching one single but getting thrown out trying to stretch it to second base.
This morning the team activated Ramon Laureano from the injured list.
Irvin settled down after the early damage, but with two outs in the 4th he was tagged with another deep fly.
In the bottom of the inning, just a few minutes after pulling back a dinger on defense, Laureano blasted one of his own to put the A’s on the board.
Laureano’s 404-foot shot began Oakland’s comeback, and Mark Canha knocked home another in the 5th with an RBI groundout — and some extra hustle to make sure he wasn’t doubled up to end the frame.
Last month he faced Oakland in an Angels uniform and blew a save by walking two batters, inducing a comeback grounder, and throwing it away for an error to gift the tying run.
Today he was tasked with holding a two-run lead.
And then something none of us could have imagined a month ago — the Halos put up four fingers to intentionally walk Elvis Andrus, loading the bases.
Kemp is hot too, like everyone in the A’s lineup, and he plopped a bloop single into center field for another run.
That was it for Watson, and somehow it unraveled further from there.
Then Canha hit a grounder to short, with the infield drawn in to make a play at the plate, but the throw to the catcher went high and Andrus slid home safely.
Olson capped off the rally with one more RBI single, pushing the margin to 8-4.
They’ve now won seven of their 10 meetings against the AL West division rival Angels, with nine more to go beginning a month from now.
At 43-27, this is their best start to a season since 1990, which was also their last trip to the World Series.