A's hold off Royals 12-10 to keep pace in AL wild-card race

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Matt Olson hit a two-run homer, Josh Harrison drove in three runs and Elvis Andrus had four hits as the Oakland Athletics held on through a nervy ninth inning to beat the Kansas City Royals 12-10 on Wednesday night.

The A's ended a three-game skid and remained 3 1/2 back of Toronto, Boston and New York in the AL wild-card chase.

Oakland's Sean Manaea (10-9) was far from flawless against his former team, allowing five runs in five innings. And their beleaguered bullpen coughed a run in the seventh, three more in the eighth and loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth before Andrew Chafin finally managed to lock down the win.

Chafin surrendered an RBI groundout, struck out Kyle Isbel and retired Ryan O'Hearn with the bases still loaded to pick up his fourth save.

“No gray hairs, amazingly,” A's manager Bob Melvin said. “It's probably been as tough a stretch on one side as I can remember, but you always have to be optimistic that we're going to ride through that and get it all together at the right time. We have to enjoy a win tonight and not turn it into a defeat because it got dicey at the end.”

Mark Canha and Tony Kemp also drove in runs off Carlos Hernandez (6-2) and the beat up Kansas City bullpen.

Salvador Perez hit his 44th homer in the fifth inning for Kansas City, moving into a tie with Shohei Ohtani and within one of big league leader Vladimir Guerrero Jr. It also was the 196th of the affable catcher's career — all of them with Kansas City — putting Perez one behind Mike Sweeney for second on the club's career list.

“When we were down, I mean, at that point all you can ask for is to give yourself a shot,” said the Royals' Andrew Benintendi, who went 5 for 5 and drove in four runs. “In those situations it's easy to fold. We fought back...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/A-s-hold-off-Royals-12-10-to-keep-pace-in-AL-16463066.php