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 Jack Hannahan and Emil Brown also homered for the Athletics, who have won eight of 10. They came into this series with just 12 home runs through their first 26 games.
Chad Gaudin (3-1) breezed to his third straight victory, allowing two runs
-- one earned -- and five hits over six innings with four strikeouts. The right-hander was 0-2 with a 6.75 ERA in his previous four starts against the Angels, but had a career-high 11 strikeouts the last time he faced them on Sept. 30 at Oakland.
Jon Garland (3-3) allowed seven runs, 10 hits and three walks in six-plus innings, striking out five. The right-hander is 0-5 in his last seven starts against Oakland, and 3-9 with a 5.01 ERA in 14 career starts against the A's.
The Athletics grabbed a 4-1 lead in the third with Barton's first homer of the season, a drive into the first row above the 18-foot fence in right field.
Garland then walked Thomas and got a visit from pitching coach Mike Butcher, who was ejected by plate umpire Charlie Relaford over something he said to him on the way back to the dugout.
It was Relaford's first game back from vacation, which he had to cut short due to the frightening injury that crew member Kerwin Danley sustained to his jaw at Dodger Stadium on Saturday. Danley was struck on the mask by a 96 mph pitch from the Dodgers' Brad Penny, which batterymate Russell Martin wasn't quick enough to catch because he was expecting a curveball.
Relaford was shaken up briefly by a foul tip into his mask by Bobby Crosby in the seventh
-- but stayed in the game.
Thomas made it 5-1 in the fifth with a broken-bat RBI single after Mark Ellis led off the inning with a double. The Angels scored in the bottom half when Mike Napoli led off with his sixth home run.
Hannahan hit a solo homer in the sixth, and Oakland broke it open with an eight-run seventh that extended the lead to 14-2. The A's used two pinch-runners that inning, Chris Denorfia and Rajai Davis
-- both of whom had hits off Chris Bootcheck to drive in runs.
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Brown greeted Bootcheck with a two-run shot in the seventh after Thomas chased Garland with a leadoff double that made him 8-for-12 lifetime against his former Chicago White Sox teammate. Ryan Sweeney added a two-run single, Denorfia added a run-scoring infield hit, Brown drew a bases-loaded walk and Davis capped the rally with a two-run single.
Barton singled with two outs in the first and scored when Thomas hit a towering fly that landed just inside the right-field line after a long but fruitless run by Vladimir Guerrero. The Big Hurt slid into third with his first triple since April 24, 2002, with the White Sox in a 9-2 win at Cleveland. His last one before that was Aug. 22, 1998.
Notes: The Angels and Athletics have each won three of the last six AL West titles. ... Thomas has 12 triples in 8,029 career at-bats. ... Three of Napoli's four career hits against Gaudin have been homers. ... The Angels recalled INF Brandon Wood and C Bobby Wilson from Triple-A Salt Lake while optioning RHP Rich Thompson and RHP Jose Arrendondo to their Pacific Coast League club. ... Wood already had eight home runs for Salt Lake to help the Bees open the season 21-1, the best start in PCL history. Wilson, who made his big league debut behind the plate in the eighth and singled in the ninth for his first hit, was called up to back up Napoli until Jeff Mathis recovers from the a flu virus that also hit Bootcheck while the Angels were in Boston. ... For the first time this season, Chone Figgins didn't start at 3B for the Angels. He was at 2B in place of Maicer Izturis, who had back spasms.
[Associated Press]
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