Luis Morales pitched seven shutout innings, Zack Gelof homered and matched his career high of four RBIs and the Athletics completed a three-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers with a 7-0 victory on Wednesday night at West Sacramento, Calif.
Brett Harris (three runs) and Nick Kurtz (two runs) joined Gelof with two hits apiece as the Athletics won for the 12th time in their past 17 games. The A’s beat Tigers ace Tarik Skubal in the opener on Monday and outscored Detroit 22-9 in the series.
The Tigers have dropped four straight games after winning their previous five. The latest setback allowed the Toronto Blue Jays to surpass Detroit for the best record in the American League.
Morales (2-0) gave up just two hits while excelling in his fourth big-league start and fifth appearance. He struck out seven and walked two while tossing 91 pitches.
Morales retired the last eight batters he faced before Justin Sterner entered in the eighth and struck out the side.
Brady Basso, making his major league season debut, worked around a walk in the ninth to complete the two-hit shutout as the A’s improved to 21-10 over their past 31 games.
Spencer Torkelson’s triple in the second inning and Dillon Dingler’s single in the fifth were the Tigers’ lone hits.
Detroit starter Casey Mize (12-5) had a rough outing, giving up five runs and seven hits over 3 1/3 innings. He struck out four and walked two.
The A’s scored once in the first as Kurtz singled, Shea Langeliers walked and Tyler Soderstrom hit a one-out RBI single.
In the second, Harris reached on an infield single with one out before Gelof launched a first-pitch slider from Mize over the wall in left-center to make it 3-0.
Kurtz followed with a single and Langeliers doubled. Brent Rooker then hit a sacrifice fly to score Kurtz.
Harris started the fourth with a double and then scored on a tapper by Gelof. Mize fielded the ball and threw wildly to first as Harris came around.
Gelof wrapped up his huge night when he came up with two runners out and two outs in the eighth. He jumped on a full-count sinker from Drew Sommers and doubled into the left-center gap to score JJ Bleday and Harris.
