Sacramento is important today because of Jan. 24, 1848, when the discovery of gold near the present-day capital — future host of Sutter Health Park and the definitely-not-Sacramento Athletics — sparked a westward migration that ultimately led to California’s statehood. The motto of the Gold Rush was “Eureka!,” or, translated, “I have found it!”
That might’ve been what Johan Rojas thought at the end of the eighth inning on Friday.
Rojas’ spinning, leaping, tumbling, crashing catch to end the penultimate frame preserved a one-run lead for the Phillies in their Sutter Health Park inauguration. At once it appeared a rejection of the Athletics’ last effort to even it up before the Phillies put the game out of reach. It later became, itself, the difference.
The Phillies and A’s traded three-run (relative) outbursts in the ninth inning, with the latter nearly tying it up against Jordan Romano before Tanner Banks struck out the potential winning run for the one-out save.
It made a winner, though a long-winded one, out of Zack Wheeler, who shut down the Athletics’ bats though 6 2/3 innings of three-hit ball. It wasn’t his most dominant outing — he walked his last two batters and required 108 pitches — but he punched out eight and dropped his ERA to 2.42.
He pitched with a lead all night, thanks to leadoff hitter Trea Turner, who homered on the fourth pitch of the ballgame. Turner went 3-for-5 — his fourth multi-hit game in the Phillies’ last five — including an RBI single in the ninth for the Phillies’ fourth run.
They needed it, it turned out. They needed all three runs they scored against A’s flamethrowing phenom Mason Miller in the ninth: Alec Bohm’s insurance RBI double to the opposite field, his second knock of the night to up his average to .269; Rojas’ RBI single to score him, too.
And they needed their center fielder’s glove to look as gold as the 19th-century California rush. The Phillies’ eighth straight win gave the A’s their 10th straight loss. The former are 33-18, a 105-win pace.
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