A's play nearly five hours to secure defeat

Final Score: Oakland A's 7 - 9 New York Yankees This is getting a little silly, frankly. One of the great things about A's baseball is that the games are over pretty quickly, for the most part. But this is their third, long, extra innings game this year (I was at the one against the Red Sox, and boy, that went late). It just makes losing all the worse. Just having a quick look at the box score, after there were runs in each of the first seven innings, but then nothing – at all! – until the bottom of the 14^th, when Melky Cabrera hit his second homer of the game, to finish the game. Sigh. That’s the one you’ll see on baseball tonight. Once the starting pitchers were pulled, both sides threatened some, with Russ Springer allowing the Yankees to load the bases in the 8^th, before remembering he was quite good at pitching, and not allowing a run. This was the story right till the 14^th frame, where once again, disappointment waited for the A’s. But hey! It wasn’t all bad. Let’s have a quick look… The Good

Well, they hit a home run! And Kurt Suzuki is now 6-10 over the last couple of games. So at least one of the A’s players has remembered how to hit.

Though some may disagree with me, I thought this was another nice start from youngster Brett Anderson. Ok, he did give up three homers, but none of them came with runners on, and, whilst five runs in five innings of work isn’t exactly pretty, he never looked flustered by giving up runs, and I suspect manager Geren could have left him out there.

The Bad

Two seventh innings stretches? And then losing? Gah.

Also, there have been some rather odd bunting decisions called by Geren. I’m not really ever a fan of that play (at least in the American League – I think it’s ok for a pitcher), I’d much rather see a major league hitter actually hit; but asking Mark Ellis to sacrifice with Powell and Crosby behind him? Suspect that’s not the percentage play.

Finally – what does Travis Buck have to do to get an at bat?

The Ugly

Well, there are a lot of ugly batting lines when nearly everyone gets six or seven at bats, but Jason Giambi’s 0-6 is not pretty, at all. Neither is Bobby Crosby’s, but then, well, that’s not what he’s being paid for.

The fielding let them down a little today, too – only one called error, but there were a couple of other plays that could have been made, and that the A’s will have to make in order to back up this young pitching staff.

Final Outs

The A’s (now 5-9) have a day off tomorrow to regroup before welcoming the Rays into town. They need to put a win on the board soon, having gone 1-4 on this road trip. They’re only four games below five hundred, but there’s a point at which that turns into having lost twice as many games that you’ve won, and that’s not happy times.

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