Krush fastest active player to 200 homers

BALTIMORE -- Khris Davis made some history by hitting his 200th career homer Wednesday night, but he was not making a big deal about it.

“It’s just a number,” he said.

To Davis, what seemed to mean more was the fact that he hit better throughout the whole game, a 10-3 victory over the Orioles that gave the A’s a second straight win at Oriole Park. He finished 3-for-5 with four RBIs as the A’s took charge early and belted five total homers.

“I made a little adjustment, and we’re just trying to work on something different, just remember something, and it showed up,” Davis said.

Plus, the two-homer night for Davis was the 23rd time in his career that he hit more than one in a game. He sent both blasts to right-center field, with a two-run shot in the fifth and a solo homer two innings later. The latter was No. 200.

Davis' 200th home run came in his 2,784th at-bat -- the fewest for any active player to reach the milestone, according to The Elias Sports Bureau. Giancarlo Stanton ranks second on that list with 2,834 at-bats needed to reach career homer No. 200.

A’s manager Bob Melvin said when Davis gets the ball out in the right-center field area, good things then seem to happen -- and they did in Wednesday's game. Plus, the skipper was very impressed with Davis reaching the 200-homer milestone.

“That’s a lot of homers; I certainly can’t relate to that,” Melvin said with a smile. “You look in the last, what, five years, it’s just been unbelievable. So, once he established himself and certainly once he got here, he’s become one of the elite power hitters in the game without a doubt.”

Davis’ 200th homer was the second part of back-to-back shots with Matt Chapman, who hit a two-run homer.

Chapman was pretty impressed with Davis reaching the mark, and also liked the way the offense has come through since the team traveled to Baltimore. Chad Pinder and Jurickson Profar also homered in the matchup.

The Oakland batting average was in the mid-.220s over the weekend in Houston. Now, after three games against the Orioles, the number has jumped to .252.

“It’s good to see, especially coming off of four losses in a row,” Chapman said. “To be able to ... see the offense take the kind of at-bats that everybody’s used to taking; making a lot of hard outs. Taking collective, good at-bats, it’s good to see out of our team. It feels good.”

Overall, eight of the team's 13 hits went for extra bases as Oakland left Baltimore’s first two pitchers -- Dan Straily and Josh Rogers -- battered and bruised. The A’s finished with 10 runs and 12 hits off of them in seven innings.

In the end, though, Davis came up with the biggest accomplishment. He’s starting to heat up overall, having gone 6-for-18 during a four-game hit streak. Davis also added an RBI single in the third inning as Oakland jumped out to a big early lead for the second straight game.

So, even though Davis didn’t seem too moved by it, his manager and teammates were happy. Chapman was hitting in front of him and went 3-for-4 with three RBIs.

“We’ll probably make him a cake soon,” Chapman said.