Ronald Acuña Jr. could return during homestand

Bazzana also walked twice before his walkoff shot off Dennis Santana in the bottom of the ninth gave the Guardians a doubleheader sweep. Throw in his RBI triple in the matinee, and it was a big day for a rookie hitting just .158/.241/.197 in his previous 19 games. He’s at .253/.337/.410 overall in 67 big-league games.

Serving as the Guardians’ 27th man, Allen allowed six hits, walked three and struck out three in his second appearance this year. It’s the first time in 98 games this year that the Guardians have needed to look beyond their usual five starters. Allen will now head back to Triple-A and wait for a more significant role to open up.

Curtis came up big in his major league debut, only to watch the bullpen give up five runs behind him. As the 27th man for the doubleheader, he’ll return to Triple-A now, but at least he’s on the 40-man for the first time and in great position to get another look in the near future.

Mason Montgomery was uninvolved in the late game mix tonight, as he opened and threw a scoreless first inning. The Pirates had Brandon Eisert begin the eighth with a 3-0 lead, but he gave up three singles to load the bases with one out. Soto entered then and allowed all of the inherited runners to score before escaping the inning. Santana took over in the ninth in a tie game and gave up hits to all three batters he faced. The second of those was a double that saw the winning run thrown out at home plate. However, that just served to set up Travis Bazzana’s walkoff homer. Montgomery seems like the Pirates’ best late-game reliever right now, but with the way Don Kelly is managing things, it’s hard to recommend any of the team’s relievers.

Kwan is almost certainly past his peak as a player, but his expected stats have gotten better as the season has gone alone; they were terrible in April, but not nearly as bad in May and June and they’ve continued to trend up in July. The Guardians are still batting him ninth for now, which subtracts from his already limited fantasy ceiling, but there’s a decent chance that he’ll return to the leadoff spot and perform as an adequate fourth or fifth outfielder in mixed leagues the rest of the way.

Langeliers unclogged the bases with his double, and extended the A’s lead to 14-0 in the seventh. He also drew a pair of walks, and the three-reach game has the power-hitting backstop hitting .258/.327/.490 with an even 50 RBI on the year.

Soderstrom gave the A’s an 8-0 lead in the sixth inning with a two-run shot that was the 16th of the season. Not exactly high-leverage, but counts just the same. He also singled, and those reaches bring his slash up to .246/.356/.484 on the campaign with 46 RBI over 306 at-bats. Soderstrom certainly has his flaws, but it’s tough to complain too much about the production over the last two campaign.s

Wilson’s homer got the party started for the A’s; a leadoff shot off Zack Littell for his fifth homer of the season. The Athletics would score another 14 in the blowout win, and Wilson would drive in one of those with a single in the seventh. Wilson has been a solid if unspectacular performer when at the top of the lineup, and he’s now slashing .288/.318/.403 on the campaign over his 58 games.

It’s somewhat impressive that Littell was able to get six innings in, even if they were far from effective. He gave up a five-spot in the first inning and another run in the second, and while he was able to pitch efficiently enough to continue on after — and it probably didn’t make sense to waste bullpen arms in that situation — he gave up two-run homer in the sixth to punctuate the poor effort. Littell has had a few too many of these clunkers, as seen in a 5.34 ERA on the campaign. He’s set to face the D-backs in Arizona on Friday.

Ginn took a no-hitter into the seventh before giving up a single to Keibert Ruiz. A day after giving up 23 runs, the A’s were able to blank the Nats until the ninth inning, and put up a couple of touchdowns of runs themselves. Ginn was lit up in his previous start Sunday, but this — to an extent, he’s not taking no-nos deep into games, of course — is much more in line with how he’s pitched for most of the year. He struck out seven against three walks while landing 50-of-82 pitches for strikes. He’ll be back on the bump against the Twins over the weekend, and take a solid 3.46 ERA into that outing.