Brent Rooker homered and drove in three runs and Zack Gelof homered and scored three times to help the Oakland Athletics to an 11-3 win against the Colorado Rockies in the second game of their three-game series on Saturday night in Denver.
Seth Brown had three hits and two RBIs, Tyler Soderstrom delivered two hits and an RBI and Ramon Laureano contributed two RBIs for Oakland, which will try for its second sweep of the season on Sunday.
A’s starter Paul Blackburn (2-2) allowed two runs and nine hits in six innings. He struck out seven and didn’t walk a batter.
Rockies starter Chris Flexen (0-5) had six walks, a hit batter and a run-scoring wild pitch in 3 2/3 innings. He was tagged for six runs (five earned) and four hits, two of which left the park.
Randal Grichuk had three hits, including a home run, C.J. Cron had two hits and an RBI, and Elias Diaz had two hits and a run scored for Colorado, which has lost four in a row.
Brown’s sacrifice fly in the first inning gave the A’s a 1-0 lead.
Flexen walked the first two batters to start the second. After a sacrifice bunt, Flexen’s wild pitch stretched Oakland’s lead to 2-0. Tony Kemp followed with another sacrifice fly to right to make it 3-0.
Gelof then went deep to make it 4-0. After a hit batter, Rooker launched a long home run to left-center field for a 6-0 lead.
After Diaz doubled to left-center field with one out in the second, Michael Toglia delivered an RBI single to cut the lead to 6-1.
The Rockies tacked on another run in the third on a leadoff double by Ryan McMahon, a groundout that moved him to third, and an RBI single from Cron to make it 6-2.
Rooker hit the third sacrifice fly of the game for Oakland in the sixth to make it 7-2.
The inning continued with a two-run double from Laureano to extend the lead to 9-2, and an RBI single from Soderstrom.
Brown tacked on an RBI single in the seventh for an 11-2 lead.
Grichuk homered in the eighth to make it 11-3.
–Field Level Media
