OAKLAND – Only 4,118 fans lodged into the Coliseum a sunny, Easter afternoon to see the A’s rally for their first win: a 4-3, walk-off triumph Sunday that kept the Cleveland Guardians from sweeping the four-game, season-opening series.
Abraham Toro’s bases-loaded, four-pitch walk brought in Darell Hernaiz for the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth.
That first win seemed likely as A’s starter Paul Blackburn took a perfect game into the fifth inning and a shutout into the eighth. Then, after just 79 pitches, his debut was done, and his 3-0 lead would soon vanish.
The Guardians scored three runs in the eighth off A’s relievers Lucas Erceg and Austin Adams, setting the stage for a ninth-inning nail-biter.
The A’s loaded the bases in the ninth, behind Ryan Noda’s walk and back-to-back singles from Shane Langeliers and Lawrence Butler. Darell Hernaiz, pinch-running for Noda, got a bad jump on Butler’s hit to center field, thus delaying the A’s walk-off celebration. Eli Morgan entered for the Guardians and didn’t throw a strike to Toro, who watched a 90-mph fastball sail high to essentially end the 2 ½-hour affair.
The season-opening series attracted a total of 26,902 fans, not counting the thousands who stayed in the Coliseum parking lot on Thursday’s Opening Night as a protest of the A’s planned move to Las Vegas by 2028.
The official crowd count for that 8-0 opening loss was 13,522, or about half of last year’s home debut, when 26,805 saw the A’s beat the Angels and eventual two-time MVP Shohei Ohtani. But that A’s team stumbled to a 3-16 start and lost 23 of their its 28 games.
Blackburn was pulled after seven innings, having allowed three hits and one walk in just 79 pitches.
Erceg allowed a leadoff triple to Estevan Florial, who initially was ruled out on his slide into third before manager Stephen Vogt won a replay appeal; Florial scored on a groundout to spoil the A’s shutout bid.
Once Erceg allowed a two-out single to Andres Gimenez, Adams entered and promptly threw his first pitch behind Jose Ramirez. The lead was cut to 3-2 when the Guardians scored off an error by shortstop Nick Allen, and Blackburn’s potential win officially vanished when Josh Naylor’s single off Allen drove in a tying run.
It was Naylor who broke up Blackburn’s perfect game in the fifth with a leadoff single to right field. Blackburn soon found himself in a bases-loaded jam after allowing an infield single to Ramon Laureano and a four-pitch walk to Estevan Florial. The shutout stayed intact, however, when Blackburn got No. 9 hitter Gabriel Arias to fly out to shallow right field, where second baseman Zack Gelof battled the sun to snare the third out.
In the seventh, former A’s star Ramón Laureano reached on a two-out single, and with Lucas Erceg up in the A’s bullpen, Blackburn got Bo Naylor to pop out to Gelof to end that threat.
Blackburn didn’t allow a base runner through four innings, requiring only 42 pitches and producing three strikeouts. His day opened with a 92.1-mph fastball for a called strike against Steven Kwan, who eventually lined out to right as the A’s secured their first Easter-day win in 10 years.
Blackburn’s dominance shouldn’t have been too stunning after his 4-0 showing in spring training. That ended with six no-hit innings against the Chicago Cubs on March 20, then just two hits by the Giants over 5 2/3 innings last Tuesday.
Blackburn, 30, was the A’s 2022 All-Star representative, and the Heritage High-Brentwood product deserved a win Sunday that would have improved his 17-24 career record as a starter.
Dany Jimenez came on to pitch the ninth for the A’s and immediately found trouble: Bo Naylor walked, and Estevan Florial reached on a Gelof error. Catcher Shea Langeliers picked off Naylor at third base to slow the rally, and although Jimenez had a pickoff attempt sail into center field, the Guardians couldn’t scratch across a go-ahead run in the frame.
The A’s jumped out to a 2-0, first-inning lead via J.J. Bleday’s RBI triple and Seth Brown’s single that scored Bleday. Esteury Ruiz scored the initial run after leading off with an infield single and stealing second. That marked only A’s second lead all season. Their first was short-lived, having gone ahead 3-2 in Saturday’s third inning, only for the Guardians to answer with three runs in the fourth inning to spark their 12-3 rout.
Sunday’s lead grew to 3-0 in the fourth, as Ruiz tripled down the right-field line and again scored on a Bleday hit, this time a single to right.
NOTES
The A’s claimed infielder Tyler Nevin off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles, while designating pitcher Adrián Martínez for assignment. Martinez went 4-8 with a 5.51 ERA in 34 appearances (13 starts) the previous two seasons.
Nevin, 26, is the oldest son of former big-leaguer Phil Nevin. A 2015 first-round draft pick by the Colorado Rockies, he made his Major League debut in 2021 with the Orioles. Primarily a third baseman, he’s batted .203 in 266 career at-bats (five home runs, 29 RBI) between the Orioles (2021-22) and the Detroit Tigers (2023). He played 41 games for the Tigers last year when he wasn’t splitting time at Triple-A Toledo (.326 batting average, 15 home runs, 58 RBI).