Oakland A’s get long-awaited clutch hit as mammoth losing streak ends

OAKLAND – Dead silence inside the Oakland A’s clubhouse was replaced by a selection of hip-hop jams. Players sitting down to eat had conversations at a normal volume instead of in hushed tones.

Finally, after close to two weeks of heartbreak, the A’s won a game again.

Ryan Noda connected on a three-run home run in the fifth inning off Michael Soroka, helping lead the A’s to a desperately needed 7-2 win over the Atlanta Braves on Monday before a Coliseum crowd of 8,556 as Oakland snapped a season-long 11-game losing streak.

Noda’s homer, his sixth of the season and his second in as many days, came on an 82-mph changeup from Soroka and just cleared the right field wall down the first base line. The blast was part of a four-run fifth inning for the A’s, who had scored three runs or less in each of their 11 straight losses.

“We’ve been just needing that one little good swing, good play, good pitch,” Noda said. “We’ve come so close and it was nice today.”

Pitchers and Bay Area natives Paul Blackburn and Lucas Erceg combined to allow one run and four hits over the first seven innings for Oakland (11-45).

Erceg, a hitter for the first six years of his pro career, had four strikeouts as he threw three scoreless innings to pick up his first career MLB victory.

“Just another moment for me to think back on later in life,” said Erceg, a San Jose native and Westmont High School and Menlo College alum. “It’s something I’ll never forget.”

Shintaro Fujinami gave up a solo home run to former Athletics first baseman Matt Olson in the eighth inning as the Braves cut the deficit to 4-2. But the A’s scored three times in the bottom of the eighth as Ramon Laureano, Shea Langeliers, and Jace Peterson all collected RBI base hits, giving Oakland some welcome breathing room.

Trevor May worked a scoreless ninth inning for Oakland, which is now 6-23 at home this season. Their series with the Braves continues Tuesday and Wednesday.

The A’s five-run win represented their largest margin of victory of the season, as they won two other games by four runs. Seven of the A’s 11 wins this season have come by one run.

What was more important for the A’s was earning their first victory since May 16 when they beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 9-8 in 12 innings.

Oakland’s 11th straight loss was a 10-1 pasting by the Houston Astros on Sunday. Houston hit seven home runs in the game, the most by any team in the 55-year history of the Coliseum.

The A’s on Monday allowed just six hits in total.

“Obviously ending the losing streak was big,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “Definitely something that’s weighed on the guys. But to see the enthusiasm in the dugout, especially when Noda hits a three-run homer and puts us up, they kind of came alive and that was a good sign.”

Blackburn was activated off the injured list Monday as he made his first start since Aug. 4 of last season. The Antioch native struck out six and allowed four hits over four innings and threw 81 pitches before he was removed in favor of Erceg.

“There are things throughout that outing that I feel like I can do better,” Blackburn said. “But all in all I can’t complain about how it went.”

Blackburn, the A’s representative at the 2022 All-Star Game, dealt with a litany of ailments over the last nine months.

He missed the last two months of the 2022 season with an inflamed right middle finger and a tear of the flexor tendon sheath. It was initially thought that Blackburn would be available to start this season on the active roster, but he suffered a right middle fingernail avulsion in March and later developed a blister on that same finger in mid-April.

It looked like Blackburn was again bothered by that same finger in the third inning as he had a 2-0 count against former A’s catcher Sean Murphy.  Play paused for a minute as A’s manager Mark Kotsay and a team trainer came out to see Blackburn, who remained in the game and walked Murphy before he got Marcell Ozuna to fly out.

Blackburn is slated to make his next start Sunday in Miami.

“It’s a small little blister that kind of occurs — not like the one that I had during the rehab assignment,” Blackburn said. “A completely different place than I usually kind of get them. Maybe I glanced at it and they saw me and came out. I don’t know. But it’s all good.”