KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Brent Rooker and Ramón Laureano hit back-to-back homers, Ryan Noda drove in three runs and the Oakland Athletics outslugged the Kansas City Royals 12-8 on Friday night in a matchup between the bottom two teams in baseball.
Kyle Muller became the first A's starter to earn a win in 33 games this year. The drought was the longest to begin a season in MLB history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Rooker, Noda, Esteury Ruiz and Tony Kemp each had three of Oakland's 17 hits, a season high. Ruiz and Noda both scored three times as the A's improved to 7-26 with only their second victory by more than one run.
Nick Pratto homered for the Royals (8-25), who dropped to 2-15 at home. They shaved a seven-run deficit to 9-8 before Oakland scored three times in the final two innings.
Rooker launched a two-run homer in the third inning and Laureano followed with a drive to left-center that made it 4-0. It was Rooker’s 10th home run of the season, second-most in the American League.
Rooker hit an RBI double in the fourth, and Kemp chased Royals starter Brad Keller with a run-scoring double in the fifth.
Keller (2-3) gave up six runs, 11 hits and four walks over 4 1/3 innings.
Noda added a two-run double in the fifth to make it 9-2 — the biggest lead for Oakland this season.
Muller (1-2) gave up a two-run homer to Pratto in the fourth. The left-hander went 5 1/3 innings, allowing five runs and eight hits. He walked three and struck out one.
For the second consecutive game, the Royals fought back from a big deficits but couldn’t complete the comeback. A two-run triple by Hunter Dozier trimmed it to 9-8 in the seventh.
ROSTER MOVES
Kansas City recalled RHP Jonathan Heasley and optioned LHP Austin Cox to Triple-A Omaha.
TRAINER’S ROOM
The Royals placed OF Kyle Isbel (left hamstring strain) on the 10-day injured list and recalled INF Nate Eaton.
UP NEXT
Oakland sends LHP Ken Waldichuk (0-2, 7.26 ERA) to the mound against Royals RHP Brady Singer (2-3, 8.48) on Saturday.
