Brent Rooker hit his 27th home run of the season, and the Oakland Athletics added two more home runs to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-5 on Friday night.
After leading the majors with 45 home runs in July, the A’s continued their strong performance in their first game of August, playing in front of a season-high 21,060 fans at the Oakland Coliseum.
Shea Langeliers and Seth Brown each hit a home run against Gavin Stone (9-5), helping the A’s win for the 10th time in 14 games, starting with an 18-3 victory at Philadelphia in their final game before the All-Star break.
“Really in Philadelphia, we really worked on how we approach each game individually,” Langeliers said. “We just kept growing with that approach. It’s just building confidence with the guys. We’re stringing good at-bats together and obviously putting up big numbers. When the offense is doing that, you tend to keep momentum on your side.”
Teoscar Hernandez hit a two-run homer in the first inning against Joey Estes (5-4), but the Dodgers struggled to score until Shohei Ohtani ended an 0-for-15 slump with a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning.
However, it wasn’t enough for the Dodgers, who lost for the fifth time in six games. Los Angeles’ NL West lead over Arizona dropped to four games.
“It’s just not Shohei’s job alone to carry this offense,” manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s impossible. He’s a guy who is at the top of the order, the most dangerous, most talented player we have. I think the game plan has to be to try to limit him, and if you can limit him, you take your chance with the eight other guys.”
Estes allowed two runs and two hits in six innings, retiring 15 straight batters after Hernandez’s home run, capped by a running catch by third baseman Abraham Toro to deny Ohtani a hit in the sixth inning.
Will Smith and Gavin Lux then drew back-to-back walks, but Estes struck out Hernandez to escape the jam and end his night.
