BALTIMORE – Former Kokomo Wildkat Jack Perkins notched his first Major League Baseball victory Saturday when he threw the opening six innings of the Athletics’ 11-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.

Making his second big-league start, Perkins got in an early hole in the bottom of the first inning. He gave up a single off the glove of an infielder to lead off, then a soft check-swing single to the left side to put two on base for No. 3 hitter Gunnar Henderson. Henderson then hit a three-run homer to right-center to give the Orioles a 3-2 lead.

Perkins responded by striking out the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 hitters to end the inning and kept motoring after that. He recorded 15 straight outs and didn’t give up a run the rest of the way. His final line was six innings with three hits, three runs (all earned), one walk and five strikeouts.

“I think for Jack it was a great outing,” Athletics manager Mark Kotsay said on the A’s postgame broadcast. “Giving up [three] runs in the first inning, a three-run homer — it was actually, I thought it was a good pitch, but that’s what happens when you’re facing good hitters — and he didn’t let that rattle him. He got back on there and it was an excellent five innings after that.”

In the second inning, Perkins started with another strikeout for his fourth straight, then got a pair of fly outs. The A’s offense then turned the game with four runs in the third inning to give Perkins a 6-3 lead to work with. In the bottom of the third, Perkins induced three groundouts with Henderson ending the frame on the last one.

Perkins needed just nine pitches to get through the fourth, getting the inning over with a strikeout and two flyouts. He then had a long wait for the fifth inning as the A’s blew the game open, scoring five runs in a 40-minute top of the fifth for an 11-3 lead. Perkins cruised through the fifth on 11 pitches with a line out, fly out and ground out.

At that point, Perkins was at 72 pitches. Kotsay had said last weekend, after Perkins’ first start, that the plan for his second start was to get to 80 pitches.

In the sixth inning, Perkins walked the leadoff batter, then got a pop out, a fly out (Henderson) and a ground out.

“He’s a big, strong kid and we pushed him as far as we could,” Kotsay said. “Almost took him to 90. It was a bigger jump [in pitch count] than probably anticipated, but he felt good. Like I said, he’s strong. It’s not like he hasn’t done that this year [in the minors] and the way it was coming out of his hand, you get to that point, you let him finish the inning.”

Perkins finished his outing with 84 pitches and departed after the sixth. Michael Kelly followed with two no-hit, scoreless innings of relief and Hogan Harris threw a scoreless ninth.

Shea Langeliers hit a two-run homer in the first inning to stake the A’s to an instant lead and finished with a big night, going 3 for 4 with three RBI and two runs. As the A’s catcher, he had the best vantage point to gauge Perkins’ outing.

“The first three hitters of the game, he kind of got ambushed there a little bit, some bad luck mixed in with the slow ground ball base hit, but I thought he did a good job executing his pitches all night,” Langeliers said on the A’s postgame broadcast. “I thought he looked good, stayed calm, cool and collected, even after the quick three runs in the first, and we started rolling after that.”

The A’s got a three-run homer from Brent Rooker in the top of the third to take the lead for good, and added another run on a Darell Herniaz sac fly. In the fifth, the A’s blew it open with five runs. Rooker hit an RBI double, Luis Urias hit an RBI single, Gio Urshela hit a two-run double, and Langeliers finished the scoring with an RBI double.

After wrapping up the Baltimore series Sunday, the A’s return home to host Tampa Bay in a three-game series starting Monday, then host the Los Angeles Angels for a three-game set starting Friday. If the A’s rotation holds, Perkins’ next turn in the rotation would be Friday in the series opener against the Angels.