ATH Bombs Texas Into Submission, Four Homers Seal 5-2 Win
The Athletics hit four home runs on Sunday, turning a tied game into a comfortable 5-2 victory over Texas. Lawrence Butler, Zack Gelof, and Tommy White each went deep, and the long ball was the only story that mattered.
Jake Burger gave Texas the early edge, homering to right center 396 feet in the second inning to put the Rangers up 1-0. The lead lasted roughly one at-bat too long. Butler answered immediately in the same frame, sending a 394-foot shot to right that scored White and flipped the scoreboard to 2-1 Athletics. Texas clawed back in the third when Burger grounded into a fielder's choice that scored Langford, knotting it at 2-2. Through three innings, this looked like a competitive ballgame. It stopped looking that way in the seventh.
That's when Gelof stepped in with Bolte on base and ended the competitive portion of the evening. His 403-foot homer to right center swung the home win probability from 59% to 87% — a 28-point lurch that effectively closed the door on Texas. White added an exclamation point in the eighth, going 413 feet to center to make it 5-2. Four home runs, four different swings, and the Rangers never had an answer for any of them.
On the pitching side, Jacob Lopez did exactly what a starter needs to do — work deep enough to keep the bullpen fresh. He went 6.0 innings, allowing 5 hits and 2 earned runs while striking out 6. Cody Bradford, by contrast, lasted just 4.0 innings for Texas, giving up 8 hits and 2 earned runs before handing the ball over. Luis Medina and Hogan Harris each threw a clean inning out of the ATH bullpen, combining for 4 strikeouts and zero hits allowed. The story of the night was the Athletics' lineup doing damage in waves — Bolte went 3-for-5, Muncy added 2 hits, and Burger's 3-for-4 effort with a homer and 2 RBI was arguably the best individual line of the game, even in a losing effort. Texas simply couldn't match the depth of the damage ATH inflicted, and it appears the Rangers' pitching staff had no answer once the middle of the order got rolling in the late innings.