WASHINGTON -- Having never tossed a complete game at any level of professional baseball, Athletics starter Jacob Lopez had his sights set on going the distance for the first time in his career after completing seven scoreless innings on 90 pitches against the Nationals on Thursday.

Then, Nathaniel Lowe stepped into the box and decided to get pesky.

The eighth inning of a 6-0 victory for the A’s at Nationals Park branched out into a game within the game between Lopez and Lowe, who engaged in a grueling battle for 17 pitches.

The showdown got off to a rather pedestrian start. Lopez quickly got ahead for a 1-2 count, with two of his first three pitches to Lowe going for called strikes.

From there, it was war. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag. Click here to view origi

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