DETROIT — Coco Crisp is on such a roll that he was even a little better than Miguel Cabrera on Monday night.

Crisp and Daric Barton each drove in two runs, leading the Oakland Athletics to an 8-6 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

Cabrera hit his 43rd homer, bolstering his pursuit of another Triple Crown, but Barton had a tiebreaking RBI single in Oakland’s two-run sixth inning. Crisp went 3-for-6 with a solo homer and is batting .500 (9-for-18) in his last four games.

The A’s scored at least one run against each of Detroit’s three relievers after Anibal Sanchez was forced out after throwing 112 pitches in five innings.

A.J. Griffin (11-9) earned his first win since July 29 despite allowing four runs and seven hits in five-plus innings. The right-hander was 0-2 with a 3.47 ERA in his previous four starts.

Grant Balfour allowed an unearned run in the ninth but held on for his 33rd save.

Cabrera went deep in the fifth, sending a 3-1 slider from Griffin over the wall in right for a two-run shot that tied it at 4-4. He leads the AL with a .359 batting average and 130 RBIs, but he trails Baltimore slugger Chris Davis for the home run lead by three.

Oakland responded in the sixth, jumping all over Jose Alvarez (1-4). Barton, who was called up from Triple-A Sacramento earlier in the day, had the last of three consecutive singles to open the inning, driving in Nate Freiman. Crisp added an RBI single.

Rockies 6, Giants 1: At Denver, Todd Helton homered to move within three hits of 2,500, and Colorado beat San Francisco.

Juan Nicasio tossed six shutout innings and added an RBI single, and Charlie Blackmon also homered for the Rockies.

Buster Posey singled and reached base for the 49th straight game against Colorado.

The Rockies began a nine-game, 10-day homestand with a strong performance against lefty Barry Zito (4-10), who has struggled away from home this season. His numbers didn’t improve in his short outing at Coors Field.

Zito allowed five runs and nine hits and struck out one in four innings in his second start since being put back into the rotation. He is 0-8 with a 9.61 ERA on the road this season.

He worked out of trouble in the first inning before the Rockies got to him in the second.

Nolan Arenado led off with a bloop single — one of his three hits — and Helton crushed a 1-1 curveball into the Rockies bullpen to give Colorado a 2-0 lead. It was Helton’s ninth homer of the season and the 363rd of his 17-year career.

The Giants got a scare when right fielder Hunter Pence crashed into the wall trying to track down Michael Cuddyer’s triple in the first inning. Pence lay on the warning track before San Francisco’s trainers came out to tend to him. After a brief examination he stayed in the game.

Pence and the Giants couldn’t do much against Nicasio (8-6), who tied a season high with nine strikeouts and allowed four hits. He worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning and pitched around two hit-batters before leaving after 95 pitches.

Alberto Callaspo

Oakland second baseman Alberto Callaspo throws out Detroit’s Prince Fielder in an 8-6 A’s win over the host Tigers on Monday. AP photo

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