Elite Eight: Moreland’s Walk-Off Gives A’s Eighth-Straight Win

The winning streak continues for the Oakland Athletics

Just eight games ago, there was a completely opposite narrative on the outlook for the 2021 Oakland Athletics.

Then again, that wasn’t just eight games ago–it was eight wins ago.

The Oakland A’s extended their winning-streak to eight games on Sunday afternoon after Mitch Moreland walked things off in the bottom of the ninth to defeat the Detroit Tigers by a final of 3-2 at the Coliseum.

Ramon Laureano would get the A’s on the board with an RBI triple in the fourth-inning to put Oakland on top first.

Chris Bassitt would turn in six-innings of two run ball and eight strikeouts, with his only blemish of the afternoon acting as a two-out, two RBI single to Tigers first baseman Harold Castro in the top of the sixth-inning.

Castro’s two-RBI knock would give Detroit a 2-1 lead that they would hold until the bottom of the eighth-inning, when Sean Murphy would tie things up at 2-2 with his first home run of the season.

After Lou Trivino’s scoreless top of the ninth, the A’s were in business after Matt Olson’s one-out double to put the winning run in scoring position with two tries at putting the game away.

Matt Chapman would follow Olson with a strikeout, Sean Murphy would walk with two outs and Mitch Moreland would come to the plate as a pinch-hitter with a chance to send everyone home.

Moreland took a 2-2 pitch from Tigers reliever Gregory Soto and drilled it right towards third baseman Jeimer Candelario, who would be unable to put a glove on the ball as it would skip under his glove and into the outfield for another A’s win.

With the win, Oakland improves to 9-7 on the season after holding a 1-7 record over the first eight games.

Due to COVID-19 contact tracing within the Minnesota Twins organization, Monday night’s game at the Coliseum has been postponed and rescheduled for Tuesday as a double-header.

First pitch in Game 1 is expected to take place at 3:30pm PST with Game 2 expected to take place shortly following the conclusion of Game 1.

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