Ohtani fails to record out as Oakland roll
NEW YORK: The Oakland Athletics took advantage of the wild pitching from Shohei Ohtani to score five times in the first inning and held on for a 6-4 victory over the visiting Los Angeles Angels on Sunday.
After the teams had split the first two contests of a four-game series, the A’s immediately grabbed the upper hand in the third match-up.
They got plenty of help from Ohtani (0-1), who was pitching in a regularseason game for the first time since a painful outing in September of 2018 that was followed with Tommy John elbow surgery.
After Marcus Semien singled to open the first, Ohtani walked Ramon Laureano, Matt Chapman and Matt Olson in succession, forcing in the game’s first run.
Mark Canha followed with a two-run single and Robbie Grossman had an RBI hit, increasing the A’s lead to 4-0, while prompting Angels manager Joe Maddon to pull Ohtani before he had recorded a single out.
Despite being gifted a big lead, Oakland right-hander Mike Fiers did not complete the five innings required to get credit for a win. He was pulled two batters into the fifth, two innings after the Angels closed the gap to 5-3 on a three-run home run from Mike Trout, his first. Yusmeiro Petit (1-0) finished the inning and got credit for the win.
At Washington, Gleyber Torres chased Patrick Corbin with a solo homer in the seventh inning and then delivered a tie-breaking RBI single off
Sean Doolittle in the eighth as the New York Yankees won 3-2 and took two of three from the Nationals in their season-opening series.
Torres had three hits and produced New York’s only two hits off Corbin. His homer into the left field seats off the lefthander’s first-pitch fastball prompted Washington manager Dave Martinez to remove Corbin. Luke Voit hit the game-tying homer off Will Harris two batters later.
In the eighth, Torres lined a 2-1 pitch against Doolittle (0-1) into left field that scored Hicks and proved to be the difference. Jonathan Loaisiga allowed one run on two hits in three innings while throwing 51 pitches. Five relievers followed and Chad Green (1-0) pitched two hitless innings.