Tokyo ? Emil Brown found a safe way home: hit the ball over the fence.

One day after Brown made a costly base-running mistake, his three-run homer in the third inning led Oakland over the Boston Red Sox, 5-1, Wednesday night and gave the Athletics a split of their opening two-game series.

Following Major League Baseball’s third season-opening series in Japan, the teams were to head back to the United States on 10-hour flights across the Pacific with a split. The Chicago Cubs and New York Mets split their Japanese series in 2000, as did the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2004.

Boston began its World Series title defense with a 6-5, 10-inning victory Tuesday night, boosted by Manny Ramirez’s tiebreaking, two-run double. The game might have lasted longer had Brown not been tagged between second and third on his RBI double in the bottom of the 10th.