Four ATH Home Runs Bury Dodgers 7-1 in Lopsided Thursday Affair
The Athletics hammered four home runs and roughed up Charlie Barnes for 12 hits and 7 earned runs across 7 innings, cruising to a 7-1 win over the Dodgers on July 2. Jonah Heim set the tone with a 444-foot shot to center in the second inning — the single play that swung win probability from 46% to 69% in favor of Oakland and, in hindsight, told you everything you needed to know about how this one would go.
Heim's blast was the game's defining moment, but the real damage came in a punishing fifth inning that turned a manageable 3-1 deficit into a rout. Shea Langeliers opened the frame with a 433-foot homer to left center to make it 4-1, then Colby Thomas doubled to center to score Kurtz, and Heim singled to left to score Thomas — three runs in the inning, six on the board, and the Dodgers were cooked. Freddie Freeman had given Los Angeles a brief lifeline with a 431-foot shot to right center in the third that knotted the game at 1, but that was the last time the Dodgers would threaten. Alika Williams added a 404-foot exclamation point to left center in the eighth to cap the scoring at 7-1.
On the mound, J.T. Ginn was far from dominant — he walked five batters over 6.0 innings and allowed 3 hits — but he surrendered just 1 earned run and kept Los Angeles from doing anything meaningful with its opportunities. That's a winning formula when your offense is putting up crooked numbers. Charlie Barnes, by contrast, had no such luck. He gave up 12 hits and all 7 earned runs across 7 innings, with just 2 strikeouts. The hit total alone tells the story: the Athletics were relentless, putting the ball in play and making Barnes work from the first pitch to the last. Hogan Harris and Luis Medina finished it off in style, combining for 3.0 scoreless innings and 7 strikeouts between them.
The story of the night was the Athletics' lineup top to bottom. Heim went 2-for-3 with a homer, 2 RBI, and 2 runs scored. Langeliers went 2-for-5 with a homer and an RBI. Henry Bolte went 2-for-4 with an RBI. This looks like a team that found its rhythm against a Dodgers rotation that, per recent news, is already managing Shohei Ohtani's workload carefully heading into the holiday weekend. Los Angeles got a vintage Freeman swing and nothing else. That's not a recipe for beating anyone, let alone an Athletics squad that appears to be swinging the bats with real confidence right now.