CLEVELAND - The only downside for the Oakland Athletics is that they don't play the Cleveland Indians again this season.
Oakland capped a four-game sweep of the free-falling Indians with a 12-7 victory on Thursday. The Athletics, who have won six straight and eight of nine, finish the season series against Cleveland with an 8-2 record. After dropping the first two games in April, Oakland won the final eight versus the Indians.
"We played against a team that we really needed to take a series from," said right fielder Josh Reddick, who had three hits and drove in three runs. "We had a great opportunity to move up in the standings against a team we've played well against all year and we did just that."
Oakland maintained its one-game lead over Baltimore for the top spot in the AL wild card race. George Kottaras' three-run double broke a 1-1 tie in the fourth while Coco Crisp, Cliff Pennington, Josh Reddick and Josh Donaldson homered.
