A's Top Red Sox 15-5, Deny Wakefield His 200th win
BOSTON (AP) -- Scott Sizemore and Josh Willingham each hit two-run homers during a six-run fourth inning that carried the Oakland Athletics to a 15-5 win over the Boston Red Sox on Friday, denying Tim Wakefield's bid for his 200th win.
The win comes one day after the A's lost 22-9 at Yankee Stadium, allowing a major league-record three grand slams.
Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz hit consecutive homers for Boston, which opened a nine-game homestand after going 6-2 on a recent trip through Texas and Kansas City.
Wakefield (6-6), making his sixth try to become the 108th pitcher to reach 200 wins, gave up eight runs -- four earned -- on eight hits, walking two and striking out three. He's 0-3 with a 4.97 ERA during the six games.
Jemile Weeks and Cliff Pennington each had three hits, and Willingham drove in four runs for the Athletics, who won for the seventh time in nine road games after losing 30 of their previous 37 away from home.
Gio Gonzalez (11-11) gave up four runs, seven hits, striking out five and walking three in 5 2-3 innings for his second straight win after losing five in a row. He picked up just his third road win in 10 decisions.
Leading 2-1 in the fourth, the Athletics scored six runs off Wakefield -- four coming after Jarrod Saltalamacchia's passed ball on Weeks' strikeout with two outs.
Sizemore started the scoring with a home run into the last row of Green Monster seats in left, making it 4-1. After Weeks fanned but reached first, Coco Crisp walked before Hideki Matsui doubled both home with a drive off the center-field wall. Willingham then homered into the Monster seats, his 23rd, making it 8-1.
Boston outfielder Darnell McDonald pitched the ninth, allowing Willingham's two-run double after walking the first two batters.
For a while it looked as though it could be similar to Thursday afternoon in New York when Oakland opened a 7-1 lead before its pitching staff was pounded.
Boston answered with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth on consecutive homers by Pedroia and Ortiz. Pedroia's was his 17th, tying his career high set in 2008 when he won the AL's MVP award. Jacoby Ellsbury tripled and scored.
The Red Sox had runners on first and second with one out in the sixth, but Gonzalez got McDonald to pop to second. Brian Fuentes relieved and Ellsbury fouled weakly to third. Boston stranded two more in the seventh.
Oakland ended any likelihood of a comeback by scoring four in the eighth against Matt Albers, opening a 13-4 lead.
Boston grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first on Adrian Gonzalez's RBI single before Oakland took the lead with two in the second, coming on RBI singles by David DeJesus and Pennington.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
