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By Tim Byrnes<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re an Athletics baseball fan, you got to love a series that starts like the one that began in Arlington on Friday night. Nick Kurtz hit the first pitch of the game 417 feet, for a 1-0 lead. At 115.9 mph off the bat, it\u2019s not much of a surprise that Kurtz leads baseball in exit velocity, at (98.7).<\/p>\n
It was payback against Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi (2-4, 5.79), for the 7-inning 3-hit masterpiece in West Sacramento earlier this month. Five pitches later, Carlos Cortes continued his hot series and hit his third home run of the season.<\/p>\n
Tyler Soderstrom deposited the next pitch 415 feet into the dead center field stands, and upped the lead to 3-0 in only seven pitches, setting an Athletics franchise mark. They have never had three home runs in the first inning on the road until Friday night\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Athletics starter Luis Severino (1-2, 5.17) had an outstanding day allowing just one earned run in 6 2\/3 innings. The only blemish came in the fourth inning when, after a Corey Seager double, Josh Jung hit an RBI-double and Texas avoided the shutout.<\/p>\n
In the fifth inning, after Zack Gelof had a one-out single and Kurtz walked, Cortes hit his second home run of the contest to blow the game open, 6-1.<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s \u201cpiled-on\u201d in the ninth, when Jeff McNeil led off with a single, and Gelof hit a two-run homer, for the A\u2019s to finish with five bombs on the night.<\/p>\n
Saturday, the A\u2019s grabbed an early lead again, this time in the second inning, when Jacob Wilson doubled and backup third baseman Darryl Hernaiz hit a 2-out RBI-single for a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
They added to it in the third inning, when Shea Langeliers led off with a single and Kurtz walked. Colby Thomas hit his first pitch back in the majors for an RBI-single, and Wilson had an RBI sac-fly to increase the lead to 3-0.<\/p>\n
A\u2019s starter Jeffrey Springs had 1-2-3 innings in the first two innings, but got touched for two runs in the third inning when Springs hit Danny Jansen and Evan Carter walked. Brandon Nimmo hit a sac-fly and Seager singled to get the Rangers within 3-2.<\/p>\n
Springs was touched up again in the sixth inning when Seager doubled, and Josh Jung homered to take the lead 4-3, the final score. Springs (3-2, 3.79) lasted six innings, had five hits and allowed four earned runs.<\/p>\n
Athletics relievers Scott Barlow and Mark Leiter Jr both had easy 1-2-3 outings to close out the eighth and ninth innings.<\/p>\n
In the finale, the A\u2019s again started off fast and took advantage of two early walks to Soderstrom and Brent Rooker in the first inning. It was Rooker\u2019s first at-bat since coming off the IL and the team has missed his muscle at DH.<\/p>\n
Cortes then tripled, scoring both men, and scoring the only runs the team would have the rest of the game. Cortes had an amazing road trip against Seattle and Texas: 13-for-24 (.542), two doubles, a triple, three home runs, and seven RBIs.<\/p>\n
A\u2019s hitters put runners on in every inning but the seventh but failed to add on any \u201cinsurance\u201d runs.<\/p>\n
Starter JT Ginn allowed hits to the batters opening the first three innings yet held Texas scoreless for his entire outing. Ginn left after just 3 1\/3 innings pitched, due to \u201carm-soreness\u201d, and reliever Joel Kuhnel finished the fourth inning for Ginn. Jacob Lopez then finished the fifth but melted down in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n
Lopez allowed a Josh Jung double and had a throwing error on the subsequent bunt that scored Jung and accounted for the final 2-1 score.<\/p>\n
Justin Sterner (1-2, 3.07) bailed out Lopez by ending a bases loaded, no-outs situation with back-to-back strike outs and a line-out to win his first game of the season.<\/p>\n
Hogan Harris handled the seventh inning while Jack Perkins handled a six out save, his first. Perkins may be a candidate to handle Ginn\u2019s next start, if need be.<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s finished the road-trip 4-2, and return home to face:
\nKansas City Royals @ Sutter Health Park 4\/28 6:40pm PST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Tim Byrnes If you\u2019re an Athletics baseball fan, you got to love a series that starts like the one that began in Arlington on Friday night. Nick Kurtz hit the first pitch of the game 417 feet, for a 1-0 lead. At 115.9 mph off the bat, it\u2019s not much of a surprise that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11059],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96027,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96024\/revisions\/96027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}