Major league RBI leader Wilmer Flores drew a nine-pitch walk with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning Saturday night, allowing the host San Francisco Giants to walk off the Athletics 1-0 in their rivalry series.
Flores, who drove in eight runs with three home runs in Friday’s series-opening win, came to the plate when A’s manager Mark Kotsay elected to intentionally walk Mike Yastrzemski with two outs and runners at second and third in the scoreless duel.
Flores fell behind right-hander Mason Miller (0-2) in the count 1-2 and fouled off three pitches while accumulating three more balls, the last of the three sending extra-innings courtesy runner Willy Adames home with the game-winner.
The RBI was Flores’ 42nd of the season.
Camilo Doval (3-1), who struck out Brent Rooker with runners at first and third and two outs in the top of the 10th, was credited with the win.
Both starting pitchers — the A’s Luis Severino and the Giants’ Landen Roupp — left after six scoreless innings. Severino allowed four hits and one walk, striking out five, while Roupp limited the A’s to four hits with two walks and five strikeouts.
The A’s had multiple early opportunities to score against Roupp, stranding a runner at second in the first inning, runners at first and third in the second, and runners at second and third in the fourth. Roupp limited the visitors to 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, the only hit being an infield single by Luis Urias that advanced Lawrence Butler from second to third in the fourth.
The Giants, meanwhile, loaded the bases against Severino with one out in the third on singles by Tyler Fitzgerald and Yastrzemski, and a walk to Flores. But the veteran right-hander struck out Jung Hoo Lee and Heliot Ramos to keep the game scoreless.
Randy Rodriguez, Tyler Rogers, Ryan Walker and Doval threw a scoreless inning apiece to complete the Giants’ second shutout of the season.
Justin Sterner held the Giants without a run in the seventh and eighth innings, and Tyler Ferguson also did so in the last of the ninth, before Miller got the call for the 10th.
Fitzgerald was the only player in the game with multiple hits, a pair of singles. The Athletics’ Tyler Soderstrom and Butler, and the Giants’ LaMonte Wade Jr. all had doubles, the only extra-base hits of the contest.
