First-ever Matt Chapman walkoff caps 12-inning A’s win

Matt Chapman notched his first-ever game-winning RBI with a walkoff home run in the 12th inning Friday night to lift the A’s to a 4-3 win over the Cleveland Indians.

Facing their first AL Central opponent of the season, Oakland ended up in extra innings for the third time in five games.

This story has been updated with quotes and post-game material from the A’s clubhouse at the Oakland Coliseum.

After twelve innings, and with the A’s scoreless for six of them, the A’s were able to prevail after a 3-hour, 48-minute game. Chapman has been vocal about the attendance, and it must have helped having fireworks night because many of the 36,913 fans stayed to witness the win.

Chapman was excited to have the clutch hit and come out on top tonight:

“First walk off homer ever, I never thought I would ever do it. It felt pretty good, I didn’t even know what to do around the bases. I didn’t even know what to do with my hands.”

Marcus Semien led off the first inning with a hard double deep into center field, and was brought to third after Stephen Profar grounded out to first.

With a 2-2 count for Kendrys Morales, Anderson’s change up was wild and bounced over catcher Kevin Plawecki’s head and hit the backstop. Semien was able to score and give the A’s the lead 1-0.

In the second, Montas gave up back-to-back doubles to left. Carlos Gonzalez led off the inning with a line drive to left field and was able to score on a Trevor Bauers double that was just over Chapman’s gold glove down the line to tie the game 1-1.

Cleveland bats kept flowing that inning, Tyler Naquin found a gap between Semien and Chapman for a base hit. With runners on the corners, Plewecki stepped up to the plate and grounded into a double play but was able to get the runner home, which cleared the bases for a 2-1 Indians lead.

With two outs in the bottom of the second, Robbie Grossman made up for his slips in the outfield with a line drive deep into center field near the 400 mark for a standing double. Josh Phegley followed with a base hit to right which allowed Grossman to use his speed to tie the game 2-2.

Laureano smashed a solo homer deep into center field to give the A’s a 3-2 lead in the sixth, but the Indians responded quickly. Plewecki led off the seventh, doubling down the third base line before a sacrifice bunt from Martin and sac fly from Lindor scored Plewecki to knot the score at 3-3.

Bob Melvin was happy with tonight pitching and emphasized how great all the pitchers did tonight and have been doing with so many extra inning games this week:

“We have played some long games, some tough games. The longer those go, the tougher they are for everybody. Certainly the bullpen, but Frankie gave us some distance, did a nice job after giving up a couple runs early.”

Frankie Montas went six innings and was relieved by Trevino, who pitched one inning and gave up a run. Ryan Buchter, Blake Treinen and Joakim Soria (W, 1-2, 4.66 ERA) kept Cleveland scoreless and helped the A’s focus on getting that one winning run.

Cody Anderson is coming off Tommy John and could only go three innings, he gave up a run in the first and second inning and was pulled. Dan Otero pitched in the fourth for two innings and Ramirez followed and gave up a solo home run. Both teams went through quite a few pitchers and after the fifth inning, no one was able to score until the twelfth inning.

On Deck

Aaron Brooks (2-3, 5.74 ERA) will start against Trevor Bauer (4-2, 3.42 ERA) on Saturday at 1:05 p.m.

Notes

The A’s recalled Daniel Mengden to start on Sunday. Mengden is 3-2 in six starts for Triple-A Las Vegas, with 44 strikeouts over 39 innings.