It Wasn't Perfect, but Olson, Fiers lead a 10-6 Win over Rangers

Matt Olson hit a grand slam in the first inning and finished with five RBI for the Oakland Athletics to back up the six-inning start of Mike Fiers as the A's opened an eight-game, six-day road trip with an easy win over the Texas Rangers.

As a manager, other than winning Game 7 of the World Series, there is no such thing for a manager as a perfect game.

Your starting pitch might throw a shutout, but maybe you had a reliever in the bullpen who you’d felt really need the work or the offense left 10 men on base. Or you run up a 10-run win, but maybe the defense was off form or the pitching was all over the place.

So when Matt Olson, four batters into the game, hit his 13th home run, a grand slam, for a 4-0 lead, it’s a good bet that Oakland manager Bob Melvin had a lot on his mind. He wanted his starting pitcher, Mike Fiers to go deep into the game because the A’s are starting this eight-game road trip with six games in four days, including a flight halfway across the country from Dallas to Seattle.

Melvin particularly didn’t want to use closer Liam Hendriks, who had pitched on three consecutive days. And he wanted to use his relievers as little as possible with a doubleheader in Arlington, Texas Saturday and another in Seattle on Monday. But if he could have limited his use of the bullpen to just one or two arms, that would have been good.

Fiers knows his math and he knows his pitching and he knew the deeper he got into the game, the better. He wanted to go seven innings at a minimum, and was on pace to get there. He had a 9-1 lead going into the seventh. But Elvis Andrus opened the inning with a solo homer, then Fiers walked the next two men he faced, leading Melvin to go to the bullpen.

Ultimately, J.B. Wendelken, T.J. McFarland and Joakim Soria each threw an inning in what turned out to be a 10-6 Oakland win over Texas to start the road trip.

“When I give up a homer and two walks, I’m going to be disappointed, no matter what inning,” Fiers said of his inability to make it through the seventh. “especially with the lead we had, to give them free base runners.

“And having J.B., T.J. and Sori come in when you know, maybe they could have gotten a day off to make it an easier day; it ended up being closer than it should have been.”

In the end, the A’s victory was never in serious doubt. Andrus’ homer got Oakland’s lead down to three runs after eight innings, but a short sacrifice fly from Tommy La Stella gave the A’s a booster run in the ninth, so no save was on the line when Soria, who does have two saves when Hendriks isn’t available, never had to face the tying run.

Olson, who followed his slam with an RBI single in the second inning, finished with five RBI. He now has 10 go-ahead RBI, the second player in the big leagues to get to double digits there this year. You wouldn’t think it to look at his batting average, now at .200, after going from Aug. 1-Sept. 10 in the interstate, as players say.

It was just Thursday that a two-run Olson homer took the A’s from behind 1-0 to ahead 2-1 in the sixth inning of a 3-1 win over the Astros in Oakland. His homer Friday was his 13th. He has 36 RBI, fourth in the AL.

“His power has been there all year,” Melvin said. “He’s just getting a few more his now. You know he’s been walking a lot (29 times, also fourth in the AL). If the one thing you look at is his average, it’s not indicative of how he’s played this year.

“He’s been through some rough stretches lie everybody else, but, man, you look at his RBIs, you look at everything else be the average and it would suggest he’s had a really good year.”

Fiers, who has seen Olson up close since the middle of 2018, is a believer.

“He’s doing a hell of a job,” Fiers said of Olson. “He’s been very productive. Maybe the average doesn’t show it, but he’s dangerous in the box, and those pitchers know it. They’ve been pitching very carefully to him.”

Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3

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