CLEVELAND (AP) — Oakland was trailing by three runs going into the seventh inning and headed to an 11th straight loss when Ramón Laureano started screaming at his teammates in the dugout.
“Ramon is passionate,” Oakland manager Mark Kotsay said. “That’s the Ramón I’ve always talked about.”
Athletics teammates responded.
Seth Brown hit a grand slam to cap a five-run seventh inning, and Oakland stopped a 10-game losing streak — its longest in 11 years — by defeating the Cleveland Guardians 10-5 on Saturday.
“My biggest thing is letting guys be themselves,” Kotsay said. “That’s Ramón being himself — his energy, his passion, his frustrations, kind of came out. That was heard loud and clear in that dugout.”
Laureano was ejected in the middle of the seventh by first base umpire Paul Emmel. Kotsay said Laureano had complained to the umpire that Cleveland’s Zach Plesac was quick pitching.
Steven Vogt, Christian Bethancourt and Sean Murphy also homered for Oakland, and Vogt had three hits and was hit by a pitch.
Oakland was outscored 60-20 during its longest skid since the A’s lost 10 in a row from May 30 to June 9, 2011. Oakland lost nine straight this year from April 29 to May 8, giving the A’s a pair of losing streaks of nine or more games in the same season for the first time since 1978.
Frankie Montas (3-6) allowed five runs and eight hits in six innings to win for the first time since April 18 against Baltimore. He had been 0-5 in his previous nine starts despite a 2.87 ERA in that span.
Brown’s homer came on a full-count fastball from Eli Morgan with two outs as Oakland rallied from a 5-2 deficit. Brown took a close 2-2 pitch that saw Morgan bounce off the mound thinking it was strike three. Brown sent the next pitch to…
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