Harris, Noda help guide A’s to third series win of season, second straight win over Pirates

While the A's potential future home was being debated in the Nevada Legislature, the team trying to avoid the worst record in modern baseball history capped its most dominant road series of the season.

PITTSBURGH  — While the A’s potential future home was being debated in the Nevada Legislature, the team trying to avoid the worst record in modern baseball history capped its most dominant series of the season.

Oakland began a three-game series in Pittsburgh by essentially doing whatever it could to give away what became a 15th straight road loss on Monday night. But rather than have another missed opportunity bleed into another, the A’s responded by doing something that’s been almost historically rare during the first two months of the season.

They won. Twice. In dominating fashion.

Wednesday, Ryan Noda homered and reached base four times and Hogan Harris took advantage of a massive first inning by his teammates to earn his first major league victory, 9-5 over Pittsburgh.

Less than 18 hours after winning on the road for the first time in a month  — an 11-2 blowout win over the Pirates — Oakland jumped on Roansy Contreras (3-5) early to capture a series for just the third time in 2023.

The A’s (14-50) have won consecutive games for the third time this season.

“Monday night was not great by any measure,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “And for them to understand that, to realize and recognize it and come out and be better on Tuesday and again on Wednesday shows signs of … resiliency.”

Harris, 26, has certainly displayed resiliency since he began his MLB career two months ago with a historically poor performance in a 17-6 loss to the New York Mets.

Harris entered that game in the fifth inning and got his first batter to ground out. But then he failed to retire another batter, walking the next three, hitting a batter, walking another and then allowing a three-run double to Francisco Lindor. His outing ended following another walk. In all, Harris gave up six earned runs and walked five batters in his 0.1 innings of work, giving him a 162 ERA. According to Stats Perform, he became the first pitcher to allow at least five walks and runs in less than an inning during his MLB debut since 1944.

Harris lowered his season ERA to 6.46 after allowing three earned runs and four hits over five innings against the Pirates.

Oakland’s first seven batters reached against Contreras. All seven scored to give Harris (1-0) a massive cushion before he threw a pitch. Harris stayed warm in the dugout during the 30-minute top of the first by throwing a weighted ball against a wall.

Haris then navigated five innings for his first major-league victory and was greeted by a traditional beer shower in the locker room afterward as “Message In a Bottle” — with the signature phrase “sending out an SOS to the world” — blared on speakers that have typically been silent during postgame as the losses piled up.

“The ‘dirty shower’ (or) whatever you want to call it was definitely very cool,” Harris said after earning just the fourth win by an Oakland starter this season. “It’s something I’m happy with. For the most part, I think I only have to live once, but it was a moment I definitely won’t ever forget, that’s for sure.”

Seth Brown had three of the A’s season-high tying 17 hits. Jace Peterson followed up a five-hit night with two more hits, including a two-run double that helped break things open in the first.

While the A’s are off to one of the worst starts in major-league history, they have tried to remain upbeat. And there may be slivers of hope. Oakland took two of three from powerful Atlanta to end May and after getting swept in Miami to start June, came to Pittsburgh and found a way to cool off the Pirates.

“We’ve just got to keep building,” said Noda, who walked twice in the first, singled in the third and added a solo home run in the seventh. “I said that after the Braves series. And you know, we’ve took two of the last three series. So we’ve just got to keep going, you know, keep building off this, keep pulling for each other.”

Rodolfo Castro homered and drove in three runs for Pittsburgh, which followed up a three-game sweep of NL Central rival St. Louis by dropping a series to a club on pace to finish 35-127.

Ke’Bryan Hayes had three hits and is hitting .482 (14 of 29) over his last seven games but grounded out with the bases loaded in the ninth while representing the tying run. Andrew McCutchen singled in the seventh for his 1,998th hit.

UP NEXT

Athletics: Make the final stop on a nine-game, three-city trip in Milwaukee. Luis Medina (0-5, 8.19 ERA) faces Adrian Houser (2-1, 3.45) on Friday.