Kyle Muller became the first A’s starter to earn a win in 33 games this year as Oakland outslugged the Kansas City Royals 12-8 on Friday night in a matchup between the bottom two teams in baseball. The drought was the longest to begin a season in MLB history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Muller said. “We have had some opportunities and fell a little short. I don’t think the performance was worthy of the first win because we’ve had some guys have some good outings. We’re just going to keep rolling from here.”
The A’s starters had gone 0-16 while surpassing the 2022 Pirates for the longest streak to start a season without a win by the starter — it’s also a franchise record, too. Washington holds the longest streak ever at 43 consecutive games without a win by the starting pitcher, set last year but not at the season’s start.
According to Elias, Oakland’s 32-game streak without a starting pitcher earning a win was the 4th-longest single-season streak in MLB history.
Brent Rooker and Ramon Laureano hit back-to-back homers and Rooker, Noda, Esteury Ruiz and Tony Kemp each had three of Oakland’s 17 hits, a season high. Ruiz and Noda both scored three times as the A’s improved to 7-26 with only their second victory by more than one run.
“This club has shown a lot of fight and resilience to fight back, and we had a tough series against Seattle and lost some of those games we couldn’t tack on runs,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “Tonight in the eighth inning we were able to tack on those (two) extra runs, which was breathing room.”
Muller (1-2) gave up a two-run homer to Pratto in the fourth. The left-hander went 5 1/3 innings, allowing five runs and eight hits. He walked three and struck out one.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.