Oakland quickly took control of this game, getting long balls from two of their biggest bats in the first inning. Ryan Noda came up and cranked an opposite field home run to lead off the bottom of the inning, and that early lead was extended when Zack Gelof repeated that feat by smacking a ball over the right field wall to make it 2-0. The next seven A’s went down in order through the top of the third, but Oakland clung on to that lead.
Paul Blackburn will carry much of the burden of holding together this pitching rotation, and his spring debut went off quite well. Blackburn cruised through a 1-2-3 first inning after striking out LaMonte Wade Jr, then struck out two more in the bottom of his second and final inning. The only blip came on a solo home run from JD Davis, which briefly cut the lead down to 2-1. Luis Medina was even more impressive, cruising through two innings in place of Blackburn. The Giants managed a bit of contact in the third, rolling two ground outs and getting a well-struck line out to end the inning, but Medina overpowered them in the fourth. Medina struck out Tyler Fitzgerald to lead off the inning, then after issuing a walk came back with strikeouts of Davis and Tom Murphy to finish his day.
While the bottom of Oakland’s order couldn’t make noise against Spencer Howard and Sean Hjelle, once the lineup flipped it was Noda and Gelof who again got the lineup rolling. Both managed to sneak hits through, and JJ Bleday broke the game open by ripping one just inside the first base line for a two-run triple. Miguel Angujar then brought Bleday home by chopping one up the middle to make it 5-1 Oakland before Hjelle was able to shut down the rally. Oakland kept tripling themselves to success the next inning, with Esteury Ruiz putting a charge into a ball, bouncing it into the left-center gap and motoring around for a triple. Darell Hernaiz swiftly brought him in with a sacrifice fly to extend the lead out to 6-1.
Unfortunately for Oakland, the cushion would not last forever. Scott Alexander is coming into spring looking to have a bounce-back after a mediocre and injury-riddled 2023, and his first opportunity in an Athletics uniform came against his most-recent team. Alexander managed to get a quick out as a Wade Meckler fly ball fell just short of the wall, but the inning unraveled quickly. Two Giants snuck ground balls through the infield before Luis Matos made Alexander pay with a three-run home run that brought the game to 6-4.
JJ Bleday had that huge hit in the third inning, and that wasn’t all he did before he departed from the game. Bleday led off for an A’s team looking to answer San Francisco’s big inning, and he took the first hack by leading off the bottom of the fifth with a solo home run. Bleday came into today 0-6 this spring and started out with a lazy fly out but accounted for four of the first seven runs of the game for Oakland.
Most of the starters from the game departed after this inning, and it became a game of each team’s fringe players. Danis Correa allowed two hits in the bottom of the sixth inning, but quickly snuffed it out by getting Yusniel Diaz to ground one over to Jordan Diaz to start an inning-ending double play. Royber Salinas has an opportunity to break out this season after spending much of 2023 injured, and he got his spring off to a tremendous start. Salinas retired all six batters he faced between the seventh and eighth inning, and struck out the final two batters he faced.
Drew Lugbauer had the lone hit following Bleday’s home run, smacking a one-out single in the eighth inning. Max Muncy grounded out after a long battle to end that eighth and is still looking for his first hit of the spring.
Billy Sullivan dominated to close out the game, striking out the first two batters in the ninth before a 5-3 ground out sealed the win.
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