OAKLAND, Calif. – Coco Crisp hit a leadoff home run and finished a triple shy of the cycle to back A.J. Griffin’s gem Saturday night, and the surging Oakland Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox 7-1 for their season-high eighth straight win.
Brandon Inge’s two-run double highlighted a four-run third inning against left-hander Felix Doubront (10-7) and Chris Carter added his 13th homer to lead another overpowering A’s victory. Oakland pounded Boston 20-2 on Friday to hand the franchise its most lopsided loss in more than a decade.
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Griffin (4-0) retired the first 14 batters until Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s bunt single with the infield shifted. Griffin struck out five and walked none while giving up three hits in seven innings.
Dustin Pedroia’s two-out RBI single in the sixth was all Boston managed in its fifth straight loss.
The low-budget A’s, who won 74 games last year, improved to 75-57. Oakland leads Baltimore (73-59) for the first of two AL wild-card spots. Tampa Bay (72-61) is behind Baltimore.
Oakland’s power at the plate has shown no signs of slowing.
Making matters worse for the Red Sox — and anybody who didn’t enjoy the tunes — was ISA’s “Moving Like Berney” song that played anytime Oakland scored as part of a promotional gimmick by the A’s for “Bernie Weekend.” Or anytime Oakland in-game entertainment crew felt like it, really.
Crisp and Inge had adopted the song as their walk-up music and the trend became a craze.
So the A’s had Terry Kiser, the actor who played Bernie Lomax in the “Weekend at Bernie’s” movies, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. The team also handed out wooden sticks with a picture of Bernie’s face. The original 1989 movie is based on two friends who haul their dead buddy Bernie around with his playful antics and gyrations, which has been mimicked in videos called the “Bernie Lean,” including one with A’s players.
Oakland certainly danced all over Boston from the start.
Crisp clocked a 1-2 fastball over the wall in left for his third leadoff home run of the season. The solo shot gave Oakland eight batters with at least 10 home runs for the first time since 2004.
Yoenis Cespedes singled home Jonny Gomes in the third, and Inge added a two-run double in the inning that bounced off the glove of right fielder Cody Ross.
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