TORONTO -- Chris Coghlan drove in three runs with a homer and Sonny Gray struck out seven as the Oakland Athletics hung on to win their sixth straight with an 8-5 victory Friday over the Toronto Blue Jays.
Oakland (10-7), the only team in the majors yet to lose away from home this season, extended its perfect road record to 7-0 despite squandering a 6-1 lead. Toronto (8-10) lost its third in a row with two hit batters, an error, wild pitch and passed ball adding to an ugly bottom line before 34,251 at the Rogers Centre.
Toronto made it interesting with a run in the sixth and seventh and two in the eighth. But a Khris Davis two-run single off Roberto Osuna padded the Oakland lead with two outs in the ninth when the ball eluded left-fielder Ezequiel Carrera, who was given an error on the play.
Ryan Madson pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his seventh save of the season.
Gray (3-1) faced just two batters over the minimum in the first five innings before fading slightly. He saw seven Jays come to the plate in a 27-pitch sixth but gave up just one run. In seven innings, the right-hander gave up three runs on six hits with three walks on 100 pitches (59 strikes).
Oakland outhit Toronto 14-8.
The game was played under the pall of a drug suspension, with MLB announcing prior to the game that Jays first baseman Chris Colabello had been suspended for 80 games without pay for testing positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, an anabolic steroid. Colabello said he had spent every moment since the original March 13 call "trying to find an answer as to why or how" the banned substance was in his system.
Oakland didn't help the mood, getting to Toronto starter Aaron Sanchez early with one run in the first and three in the second thanks to Coghlan's second homer in as many nights. Sanchez had to escape the bases loaded with one out in the third.
Gray, meanwhile, mowed down the Jays with five strikeouts in the first two innings and retired the first eight batters he faced before Darwin Barney hit a solo homer to left in the third. It was the first Gray delivery to exit the infield.
Oakland added two more runs in the fifth on two singles, a wild pitch and Coco Crisp double before Sanchez finally got an out before giving way to left-hander Chad Girodo for his major-league debut.
Sanchez (1-1) gave up six runs on 10 hits in 4 1/3 innings with three strikeouts and one walk. He threw 85 pitches, including 53 strikes, in facing 25 hitters in his worst outing in 15 career starts (he gave up five earned runs in 5 2/3 innings against Baltimore last May).
Girodo, facing an Oakland lineup filled with left-handers, threw two scoreless innings before giving way to Jesse Chavez and Osuna.
Down 6-1, Toronto finally got to Gray in the sixth, loading the bases with no outs on walks to Barney and Josh Donaldson and a Carrera double. The Jays managed just one run -- on a Jose Bautista sacrifice fly -- as Edwin Encarnacion flied out and Josh Thole, with the bases loaded again, grounded out. Thole had come in for Russell Martin, who had neck spasms.
Toronto cut the lead to 6-3 in the seventh on Barney's RBI single and scored two more on Kevin Pillar's bases-loaded single off reliever Sean Doolittle with two outs in the eighth.
Justin Smoak, who had been platooning at first with Colabello, started at first base. Toronto gave left-fielder Michael Saunders (hamstring) and shortstop Troy Tulowitzki (hip) the night off, with Carrera starting in left and hitting leadoff, Barney at second and Ryan Goins shifting to shortstop.
Carrera threw out a greedy Davis at the plate as Sanchez gave up three straight singles to open the second. But one out later, Coghlan took him deep to left-centre to make it 4-0.
Oakland's speed negated double-play attempts in the second and, at first blush, in the third inning. But after review, Crisp was returned to second base on the grounds that Barney had not touched the second-base bag when he tried to start the double play. That left the bases loaded with one out but Sanchez escaped further damage.
Another Oakland-requested video review in the fourth did result in a double play, with Toronto's Encarnacion called out at first. The Jays lost a video replay in the ninth with Carrera ruled not to have beaten the throw at first.
Oakland came into the game having held its opponents to 2.4 runs an outing during its five previous games.
Toronto, which led the league last season with 891 runs (5.5 per game), had scored 65 in its 17 previous games (3.8 per game) this year to rank 12th in the majors. The Jays also led the majors in strikeouts with 164, hitting just .141 with two strikes over the past 14 days.
Notes: The Jays confirmed the signing of Michael Bourn, a 33-year-old outfielder who split last season between Cleveland and Atlanta. He will be assigned to Buffalo. A former all-star known for his speed, Bourn has been hampered by injuries in recent years.
