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Indians crush A's, complete four-game sweep

May 9, 2013 - 9:49 PM Cleveland, OH (Sports Network) - There was no disputing the Cleveland Indians' 9-2 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Thursday.

The two teams were back in action less than 24 hours after Wednesday night's controversial call in the ninth inning.

With Oakland trailing by a run with two outs in the ninth, the Athletics' Adam Rosales appeared to tie the game with a home run off closer Chris Perez. The play was ruled a double on the field and upheld after a video review, despite replays that appeared to show the ball clearing the wall and hitting a railing in left-center before caroming back onto the field.

Major League Baseball admitted that "an improper call" was made in a statement released Thursday. However, the Indians' 4-3 victory on Wednesday held up.

On Thursday, Mark Reynolds, Jason Kipnis and Nick Swisher each homered for the Indians, who completed a four-game sweep of the A's.

Scott Kazmir (2-1) allowed one run on five hits while striking out 10 over six innings for Cleveland, which went 8-1 during a nine-game homestand. The left- hander improved to 10-5 lifetime against Oakland.

Josh Donaldson hit a solo homer for the Athletics, who saw starter Bartolo Colon (3-2) give up six runs on eight hits over four innings.

"He didn't look awful," A's manager Bob Melvin said of Colon. "Velocity was there. The balls he got in the middle of the plate, they hit. And they did it the whole series. Sometimes the other team just beats you. Today that was probably the case."

The Indians jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Michael Brantley led off with a single and scored on Kipnis' homer to left-center field.

Cleveland tacked on three more runs in the second. Reynolds doubled to right- center field and raced home on Yan Gomes' double down the right-field line. Drew Stubbs followed with an RBI single to left. He moved to third on Brantley's single and scored on Kipnis' sacrifice fly.

Swisher led off the third with a homer to make it 6-0.

The Indians put three more runs on the board in the fifth. Asdrubal Cabrera doubled and scored on Jason Giambi's single to left. Reynolds followed with a two-run homer to right-center field.

"We stayed on Colon," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "He's got that terrific two-seamer that you're just dying and rolling over into a double play. We didn't. We stayed in the middle of the field, and we barreled up a lot of balls and we stayed at him."

Donaldson's homer in the sixth cut the gap to 9-1. Oakland added another run in the eighth when Rosales walked, advanced to third on Jed Lowrie's base hit and scored on Eric Sogard's single to right. The A's stranded the bases loaded later in the frame.

Game Notes

The Indians entered this series with the Athletics having lost eight straight to them ... Cleveland finished a homestand with eight wins for the first time since going 9-1 from Sept. 8-18, 2005 vs. Detroit (1-0), Minnesota (3-0), Oakland (2-1) and Kansas City (3-0) ... Colon fell to 6-4 lifetime versus the Indians ... Cleveland had 12 hits ... Following the game, the Indians activated outfielder Michael Bourn from the 15-day disabled list and optioned pitcher Scott Barnes to Triple-A Columbus.