The Royals scored four runs late to earn a 7-3 victory over the Athletics at the Oakland Coliseum.
With the game tied at 3-3, the Royals came to bat in the eighth with reliever Marcel Lachemann taking over on the mound. With one out, Mike Fiore singled and took second on a wild pitch. Joe Foy’s single moved Fiore to third, and Lou Piniella hit a sacrifice fly for the lead.
After Oakland left the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth, the Royals tacked on three runs in the ninth. Chuck Harrison led off with a walk, and Lachemann hit Ellie Rodriguez with a pitch. Rollie Fingers replaced Lachemann and got two quick outs, but former Athletic Joe Keough delivered a pinch-hit single for two runs. After Fiore walked, the Royals tried a double steal. Catcher Dave Duncan threw wildly, and Keough scooted home with Kansas City’s final run.
The Royals scored first in this game, with singles by Jerry Adair, Harrison, and Rodriguez producing a single run in the second inning. Adair’s hit was the 1,000th of his career. Oakland took the lead with a three-run fourth. Royals starter Jerry Cram, making his first major-league start, had pitched three perfect innings but gave up four hits in the fourth, including run-scoring singles by Danny Cater and Dick Green with two outs.
But Kansas City wasted no time tying the score. In the fifth, Rodriguez led off with a single off A’s starter Lew Krausse. Bob Oliver hit his 12th homer of the year to knot the score at 3-3.
Al Fitzmorris really helped the Royals’ cause by taking over for Cram to start the fifth and pitching three scoreless innings, although he had to work around two singles in the seventh.
The win improved Kansas City’s record to 57-82. They were in fourth place in the AL West, 28 games behind Minnesota.
Box score and play-by-play: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK196909080.shtml
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