"I knew he had to get ahead of me," the A's second baseman said of coming to the plate with the bases loaded in a tie game with two out in the bottom of the 12th inning on Sunday.

Ellis wasted no time in hammering the ball against the screen of the left-field foul pole to clear the bases and the A's dugout as Oakland snagged a 7-3 win to avoid a three-game sweep by the Angels, climbing back within 4 1/2 games of the first-place Halos.

Even Bootcheck was well aware of what Ellis was waiting on.

"I know he's looking heater," the reliever said. "I was trying to stay away, make him beat me the other way."

Bootcheck threw the first pitch for a strike, but as he admitted after the game, it was "too good a strike in that situation."

"I had my doubts about it," Ellis said just minutes after his blink-of-an-eye plate appearance. "I didn't know if it was going to be fair or not. It's a good feeling to win a game like this."

Before Sunday's exhilarating finish, A's fans had last seen a walk-off grand slam June 30, 1995, when Mark McGwire hit one out -- also against the Angels. It was the fifth game-ending grand slam in Oakland history and Ellis' second career walk-off homer.

"That doesn't happen a whole lot," Ellis said. "It was nice to get it out of the ballpark to make up for previous at-bats."

After Jack Hannahan led off the 12th with a strikeout, Gregorio Petit and Rajai Davis brought life to the 26,332 fans in attendance at the Coliseum with back-to-back singles before Travis Buck boarded with a walk to set up Ellis.

The A's second baseman wasn't the only one gleaming after the almost four-hour game. Just a couple lockers down from him was Brad Ziegler, who couldn't stop smiling even if he tried following his first Major League win.

Ziegler came on in the 11th with Maicer Izturis and Howie Kendrick on board after walking against Andrew Brown. With Garret Anderson at the plate, the right-hander got him to line out to Petit that started an inning-ending double play.

"Super job he did," manager Bob Geren said. "Anytime you go into extra innings it's tough, but great job by the bullpen all the way through."

It was Ziegler's fifth appearance since being called up from Triple-A Sacramento on May 30. He had not surrendered a run in 4 2/3 innings with the A's but had allowed three of his six inherited runners to score.

"I saw him really as [Sacramento's] most effective reliever," Geren said. "I give guys chances and, when they're doing well, I put them out there."

By day's end, Ziegler had the game's lineup cards safe in his locker to remind him of his first victory. Missing, though, was the game-winning ball.

"I don't need the ball to remember this," the 28-year-old said. "With a win like that, you're not going to forget about it."

Ziegler was the A's sixth pitcher in the game, which was started by Rich Harden. Although the hard-throwing Harden pitched six effective innings -- giving up three runs on six hits with three walks and a season-high-tying nine strikeouts -- his outing was almost yesterday's news by the time the game ended.

"The team won," Harden said matter-of-factly. "That's all that matters."

The right-hander did not elaborate much following his third straight no-decision, largely in part because he wasn't completely satisfied with his showing on the mound.

"I expect a lot out of myself," he said. "I seem to have that one inning where I'm missing spots, so I just want to keep working on improving."

That inning was the fourth on Sunday. Vladimir Guerrero hit a two-run homer off Harden that was followed two batters later by an RBI base hit off the bat of Gary Matthews Jr. to erase Oakland's lead and make it a 3-1 game.

Before that frame, Harden had kept things quiet -- except for a first-inning performance that had everyone in the Coliseum talking.

The 26-year-old pitcher began the game by striking out the side on nine pitches, becoming the first A's player to do so since Lefty Grove did it in 1928.

"I don't think I had ever seen that before," Geren said.

But for Harden, it was "just three outs." By the seventh, the game had been knotted after Oakland turned a 3-2 Angels lead into a tie. Following Jack Cust's Major League-leading 47th walk and pinch-runner Davis replacing him on first base, Eric Chavez lined his third double of the season to right-center field to bring home Davis and get the A's back even.

Following Chavez's big hit, 15 straight A's batters were retired, and it was announced that Bobby Crosby had left the game with a slight sprain in his right ankle.

After the game, though, Geren announced Crosby would most likely be good to go for Tuesday's series opener against the visiting Yankees. The good news went hand-in-hand with the fateful 12th-inning heroics.

"I've never seen a walk-off grand slammy before," said a wide-eyed Ziegler. "That was incredible.

"It makes for a real special win to avoid a sweep against them. That was a big deal."