End of a Bay Area era: Giants, A's likely play final game as neighbors

When Major League Baseball began including interleague matchups in the regular season in 1997, the Bay Bridge Series between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics came to life.

On Sunday, the teams are expected to meet for the final time as neighbors -- the Giants will cross the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for one last meeting with the Oakland A's. After this season, the A's intend to vacant the old Coliseum they've called home since 1968 and head 80 miles to Sacramento, where they'll make a temporary home for a planned three seasons while the team's new stadium is being built in Las Vegas.

Oakland won Saturday's game 2-0, the opener of a brief two-game series. The A's and Giants split two more games played in San Francisco in late July.

The A's hold a 76-71 lead over the Giants in games played in the Bay Bridge Series. Not counted in that record is the 1989 World Series -- delayed by a deadly earthquake that October -- that the A's swept with a pair of wins at both sites. It was the last of four World Series won by the Athletics.

A sellout crowd is expected Sunday in Oakland as the Bay Bridge Series ends.

Oakland's Seth Brown said he knows how lucky he was to have been a part of the series, recognizing when the A's drafted him in 2015 that it was something special.

"When you get drafted by the A's, it's like ‘Man, it'd be so cool playing in something like that,'" Brown said, per the San Francisco Chronicle. "For me, it's one of those memories I'll never forget: being able to say I was part of the Bay Bridge Series."

Oakland's biggest home turnout of the year -- 37,551 on Saturday -- included a large gathering of Giants fans and at least a dozen friends and family of pitcher Grant Holman, a former University of California star who made his major league debut for the Athletics.

Facing a rival featuring former A's manager Bob Melvin, third baseman Matt Chapman and outfielder Mark Canha, Holman made his mark in the Bay Area history books, getting two outs in relief. He retired Casey Schmitt to ground out with the tying runs aboard in the seventh before recording the first out of the eighth.

"Pretty impressive for the young man," A's manager Mark Kotsay said afterward. "We talked pre-game about landing a soft spot -- and that wasn't a soft spot. He came in very calm and under control."

It will be a veteran taking the mound for the Giants on Sunday.

San Francisco will send one of baseball's hottest pitchers -- left-hander Blake Snell (2-3, 3.91 ERA) -- to the mound in the historic finale.

In seven starts since July 9, Snell has gone 2-0 with an 0.99 ERA, a stretch that included a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 2 and a no-hitter into the seventh inning in his most recent start, a 1-0, 10-inning home loss to the Atlanta Braves on Monday. He wound up surrendering two hits and striking out 11 over 6 1/3 innings.

The 31-year-old is 2-1 with a 4.62 ERA in five career starts against the A's.

Oakland is expected to counter with its ace, fellow left-hander JP Sears (10-8, 4.32 ERA), who has gone 6-1 with a 2.91 ERA in his past seven starts.

The 28-year-old made his first career start against the Giants in a 5-2 win in San Francisco last month, throwing seven innings of three-hit shutout ball while striking out nine.

He didn't see new Giants center fielder Grant McCray in that appearance. In just his third big-league game, McCray was the standout performer for the visitors Saturday with a diving catch, an infield single that ended Osvaldo Bido's no-hit bid in the sixth inning, and a double that gave the Giants life late in the game.

"He's playing with a lot of confidence," Melvin said. "He certainly looks the part. He's fast and having good at-bats right now against guys he's never faced before."

-Field Level Media