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Kielty's extra-inning single pushes Athletics past Yankees

Apr 14, 2007 - 8:03 AM OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- It took extra frames, but Bobby Kielty and the Oakland Athletics managed to eke by the New York Yankees.

Kielty had the game-winning hit in the 11th inning and Eric Chavez drove in three runs as the Athletics came back for a 5-4 victory over the Yankees.

Chavez hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning and Nick Swisher hit a game-tying solo blast off reliever Kyle Farnsworth in the seventh for Oakland, which is 4-1 in one-run games in 2007.

"It felt good, not great, not terrible," said Chavez of his first long ball of the season. "It was a pitch up, and I hit pitches up pretty good."

Entering the contest the Athletics were tied with San Francisco for the lowest home run total in the majors with two.

"It was nice that we hit two tonight," Chavez said. "We know we're better offensively, I don't know how good, but better offensively than we've been. Hopefully this will give us some more consistency."

Rookie Travis Buck began the winning rally, hammering a one-out triple to right-center field off New York reliever Brian Bruney (0-1).

"I made the decision coming out of the box," said Buck of his decision to attempt to leg out the triple. "I know Damon doesn't have a good throwing arm, and I wanted to test it. Both staffs tonight had pitched tremendous, and it was something to get us going."

After Mark Ellis was hit by a pitch and Swisher was intentionally walked, Kielty hit a hard grounder to the right side of the infield which was stabbed by Doug Mientkiewicz. However the diving first baseman was unable to make an accurate throw home, allowing Buck to score the winning run.

"I made a bad throw," Mientkiewicz said. "You don't have a lot of time there. The ball was hit real hard, and playing so close in, you knew it was going to bang-bang. Hopefully you can skip it on line and see what happens. But it was way off line."

"Doug's a great first baseman, and he made a great effort," Bruney said. "The guy couldn't have rolled the ball into a better spot. I threw the pitch I wanted and got a ground ball, but he just hit it in the perfect spot."

Oakland starter Dan Haren struggled throwing 107 pitches in just five innings, but yielded only three runs on four hits.

"I didn't have my best stuff, but was able to get out of some jams," Haren said. "Hopefully that gave us a little bit of a boost. The offense really picked me up tonight."

Oakland closer Huston Street (2-1) worked the top of the frame, allowing just a two-out walk to earn the victory.

Yankee starter Kei Igawa surrendered three runs on three hits in 5 1/3 innings.

"The loss hurts, but no question the bright spot was the way Igawa pitched," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "He had good control and was able to keep most of his pitches around the plate."