Khris Davis swished a three-pointer with his batting helmet for an encore to a three homer night.
The shot with his batting helmet, in homage to the Golden State Warriors as much as an exclamation point on a trifecta of round trippers, came as he rounded third on the final home run—a grand slam with two outs in the bottom of the night. The four-RBI dinger came as the first of Davis’s career and gave Oakland an 8-5 win over the Texas Rangers.
Davis, who went three-for-five, also hit solo shots in the second and sixth. His six RBI accounted for most of Oakland’s offense and alone provided enough run support to beat the Rangers. Ian Desmond launched a two-run bomb in the top of the ninth inning to give Texas a 5-4 lead before Davis won the game for Oakland.
“The adrenaline was pumping so fast; it was an amazing feeling,” Davis told reporters after the game. “It was pretty extraordinary to see the fans go off the way they did. It was a rush.”
For the Rangers? Perhaps not so much. Just coming off a series in which Matt Bush plunked Toronto’s Jose Bautista and Rougned Odor clocked him for flipping his bat after homering off them in the 2015 postseason, Davis’s gesture may bring repercussions. Whether a jump shot with a batting helmet ranks as disrespect on the level with a flip of the bat remains for the Rangers to decide.