Nick Kurtz drilled a grand slam and Zack Gelof also went deep to help the Athletics notch a 6-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night in West Sacramento, Calif.
Kurtz also doubled to extend his streak of reaching base to 36 consecutive games. Darell Hernaiz had three hits and J.T. Ginn allowed one unearned run in six strong innings as the A’s halted a two-game slide.
Henry Bolte had two hits and one walk with one RBI in his first big-league game for the Athletics. Colby Thomas and Michael Stefanic also had two hits for the A’s.
Alec Burleson recorded three hits and Nathan Church had two hits and an RBI for St. Louis. JJ Wetherholt and Masyn Winn also had two hits for the Cardinals, who lost for the third time in their past four games.
Ginn (2-1) gave up nine hits and one walk while striking out three in winning his second straight start.
St. Louis’ Matthew Liberatore (2-2) allowed four runs and nine hits over five innings. He struck out five and walked two.
The Athletics trailed 1-0 with one out in the fifth before Hernaiz and Stefanic singled and Shea Langeliers walked to load the bases.
Kurtz came up and sent a 2-2 slider from Liberatore to deep left-center field. Victor Scott II just missed a leaping grab to allow Kurtz to register his third career grand slam.
The Cardinals reduced their deficit to 4-2 in the seventh when singles by Pedro Pages and Wetherholt put runners on the corner with one out. Ivan Herrera followed with a sacrifice fly to right to score Pages.
The Athletics got the run back in the bottom of the inning as Kurtz led off with a double and moved to third on an infield single by Thomas. One out later, Bolte hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Kurtz for his first major league RBI.
Gelof smashed the second pitch of the eighth inning from Gordon Graceffo over the fence in center to make it a four-run margin.
The Cardinals put two runners on against Jack Perkins with one out in the ninth in a non-save situation before Perkins retired Herrera on a pop-up and struck out Burleson to end it.
In the St. Louis fourth, Nolan Gorman and Winn started the frame with hits with A’s right fielder Thomas bobbling Winn’s hit to allow Gorman to move to third. Church followed with an RBI single to center.
