A’s fall to Phillies 5-3 after rain delay

PHILADELPHIA - Jorge Alfaro homered and Philadelphia’s relievers pitched six strong innings after a rain delay to lead the Phillies over the Oakland Athletics 5-3 on Saturday night.

J.P. Crawford had two RBIs and Cesar Hernandez also drove in a run for the Phillies, who improved to 5-14 against the AL.

Matt Olson and Jed Lowrie homered for Oakland, which lost for just the third time in its last 10.

The game was delayed 1 hour, 46 minutes by rain during the third inning.

Neither starter returned following the delay. Philadelphia’s Ben Lively gave up two runs and two hits in three innings while Kendall Graveman allowed one hit in two scoreless innings.

Hector Neris pitched the ninth for his 21st save in 24 chances to cap an impressive performance by Philadelphia’s bullpen.

Neris gave up a solo shot to Lowrie, but Yacksel Rios, Victor Arano, Hoby Milner, Edubray Ramos and Luis Garcia didn’t allow a hit over five scoreless innings.

Arano (1-0) pitched two innings to earn his first major league victory.

Simon Castro (1-3) gave up two runs in two innings.

The Athletics jumped to a 2-0 lead in the second. Olson led off with his 20th homer, a solo shot to right.

Boog Powell drove in the other run with a sacrifice fly.

The Phillies got a run back in the third on Hernandez’s two-out RBI single, and they tied it up an inning later on Crawford’s RBI single to right.

Alfaro snapped the tie with a two-run drive to straightaway center that made it 4-2, and the Phillies tacked on a run in the eighth on Crawford’s sacrifice fly.

ERROR PRONE

Oakland upped its major league-leading total to 116 errors with a pair of miscues. SS Marcus Semien had one error in the third on Freddy Galvis’ hard-hit grounder, and Castro made a two-base error when his pickoff attempt on Galvis got past first baseman Olson.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Athletics: Powell came up limping after running into the center-field wall trying to catch Alfaro’s homer, but he was OK after walking it off.