Langeliers hits 20th home run, Ginn shines as A’s beat Dodgers in series finale
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- J.T. Ginn threw six innings, allowed one run, and lowered his ERA to 3.04.
- Shea Langeliers hit his 20th homer, his fourth straight 20+ homer season.
- A’s bullpen struck out multiple Dodgers and held them scoreless over three frames.
Los Angeles Dodgers opener Jack Dreyer struck out the Athletics’ first three batters of the game, including stars Shea Langeliers and Nick Kurtz on Wednesday night at Sutter Health Park.
Luckily for the A’s, the team’s offensive struggles, like the Dodgers’ opener, wouldn’t last past the first inning as they evened the score at 1-1 off a Jonah Heim home run before cruising to a 7-1 win thanks, in part, to Langeliers’ 20th long ball of the season and two hits from Kurtz.
“Over the course of 162 games, there’s going to be a bunch of momentum swings,” Langeliers said postgame. “I think this game can get us back on the right track and moving in the right direction and start playing some good baseball.”
The win stopped the A’s from getting swept in a three-game series against the reigning, back-to-back World Series champion Dodgers, who had handily won the first two contests by a combined 11 runs.
The A’s win snapped a four-game losing skid and improved their record to 41-46, three games out of the American League West lead as well as the final AL Wild Card spot, and it handed the Dodgers (56-31) their first loss since last Friday.
Langeliers bolsters All-Star bid
Langeliers became just the second A’s player to hit at least 20 home runs in four straight seasons, following Khris Davis, who did so from 2016 through 2019.
After hearing about the statistic, A’s outfielder Lawrence Butler interjected a question into Langeliers’ postgame availability, asking how he was able to hit home runs so consistently.
“Swing at strikes,” Langeliers said.
“You should teach Lawrence Butler how to do that,” Butler said in response.
As of Wednesday morning, Langeliers led the race to start the All-Star game at catcher for the American League with 65% of the head-to-head vote against Toronto Blue Jays backstop Alejandro Kirk, according to MLB.com. Voting closes at 9 a.m. Pacific on Thursday.
“He’s obviously been the catalyst of our offense,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said of Langeliers after Wednesday’s win. “It’s hard to sustain, as a catcher, the performance that he put on. … I feel like he’s done a great job.”
Ginn survives five walks in win
A’s starter J.T. Ginn (7-4) threw six innings of one-run baseball while fanning four despite some issues with control that led to five walks and multiple jams.
“Obviously, five walks, you never want to see that, you try to attack the zone as much as possible,” Ginn said postgame. “But I made big pitches when I had to.”
The start lowered Ginn’s earned run average to 3.04 across 19 appearances (16 of them starts), a significant improvement on the 27-year-old righty’s 5.08 ERA last season.
Walks have been an issue all season for Ginn, who is averaging 3.7 per nine innings, including three other games with at least four, all of which led to either a blowup start or a short outing.
However, Kotsay said Wednesday’s start was a sign of Ginn’s growth as he worked through the dangerous Dodgers lineup and limited the damage on his five walks.
In the third inning in particular, a rally that began with a one-out Freddie Freeman home run looked bad for the A’s after Ginn surrendered two straight walks with two outs and the game tied 1-1.
Ginn bore down and struck out Dodgers second baseman Alex Freeman looking on the seventh pitch of the at-bat. He then largely cruised through his next three innings of work.
“If you look at J.T. this year vs. last year, that game would have easily spiraled for him,” Kotsay said. “He’s a young man that has really learned how to use his arsenal effectively. I couldn’t be more proud of the way he went out tonight.”
Heim and bullpen are highlights of win
Coming in after Ginn, A’s relievers Luis Medina and Hogan Harris both struck out at least three Dodgers while holding the star-studded visitors scoreless over the final three frames.
After Medina got into trouble with a Max Muncy double and Kyle Tucker walk — Tucker’s fourth of the game — Harris entered the game with two outs and struck out Tommy Edman to end the inning. Harris then struck out three Dodgers, including superstar Shohei Ohtani, in the top of the ninth inning to finish off the win for the A’s.
“Hogan has been one of our better relievers over the course of the whole season. He had good velo tonight,” Kotsay said. “Medina was awesome as well, threw strikes for the most part, attacked hitters … these two, hopefully, will settle into the back end of the bullpen.”
Ohtani finished Wednesday’s game — which, until Tuesday afternoon, he had been slated to start as a pitcher until the Dodgers moved his next start back to Friday — 0-for-5 at the plate with two strikeouts at the leadoff spot.
On the offensive end for the A’s, Jonah Heim was a standout Wednesday, hitting a home run, an RBI single and drawing a walk.
Since Heim was acquired in a trade from the Atlanta Braves in early May, he has been a key backup to Langeliers, occasionally allowing the potential All-Star to play designated hitter to rest his legs while holding a .881 OPS over his last 25 games.
“The guy’s unbelievable,” Langeliers said of Heim. “He’s a phenomenal catcher, putting it together offensively right now, too, swinging a really good bat.”
Joshua Kuroda-Grauer continued his strong debut series with another two hits including a double, after nabbing three hits in his MLB debut Monday. Henry Bolte notched two singles and Alika Williams homered in the eighth inning to round out the offensive effort.
Though the team with the best record in majors is leaving West Sacramento, the A’s next opponent isn’t much easier.
After a day off Thursday, the Athletics will host the Miami Marlins (46-41), who went 20-6 in June, at 6:40 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with Saturday’s contest featuring a firework show for the Fourth of July, followed by a 1:30 p.m. matinee Sunday to close the three-game set.
