Josh Reddick Helps A's Win 6th Straight; Jonathan Lucroy Drives in 7, Rickie Weeks, 5-for-5 in Brewer Loss

Players of the Day for Thursday, August 30, 2011

American League

The Oakland A's won their sixth straight, to remain one game up on Baltimore for the first wild card position, but, more surprisingly, only four back of Texas in the AL West race.

Oakland banged out 13 hits in a 12-7 win at Cleveland, sweeping the four-game series as Cleveland's tailspin continued. The Indians, once leaders in the Central division, have dropped five straight and 14 of their last 15 and are now hopelessly out of contention for any post-season play.

Josh Reddick

Leading the A's assault was Josh Reddick, acquired by the A's in an off-season deal with the Red Sox. Reddick went 3-for-5 with his 27 homer of the season, a two-run, fifth inning blast and drove in three runs.

Reddick is riding a five game hit streak, with multiple knocks in four of those games and has 69 RBI for the A's.

Oakland outscored Cleveland 30-12 in the four game series and now head home to host the Red Sox in a three game set starting Friday.


National League

Lucroy: GS, 7 RBI

Weeks: 5-for-5, 4 R

For Milwaukee, it's been a season of disappointments, so much so that even when a player has a big game the Brewers can't do enough to take advantage of it.

Such was the case in Milwaukee's 12-11 loss to the even-more-despondent Chicago Cubs, as Jonathan Lucroy delivered a monster game, going 3-for-5 with seven RBI.

Lucroy began his batting attack with a grand slam in the third inning that put the Brewers up by a 5-3 score. In the sixth, he singled in a pair of runs and singled again in the eighth, completing the Mulwaukee scoring with another RBI. That put the Brewers up, 11-9, but, the bullpen was unable to hold the lead, allowing the Cubs to plate three in the ninth for the walk-off win.

Lucroy's seven RBI were a career high. On base each time he drove in a run was Rickie Weeks, who went 5-for-5 and scored four times.