No, not in a Bill Paxton in Aliens kind of way. More a peaceful kind of way.
The A's needed to play perfect baseball to beat the Angels, and they didn't. Joe Blanton once again pitched to near perfection with nothing but a big, fat "L" to show for it. Two complete game losses to the Angels and he almost could've gone for number three tonight with 95 pitches through eight innings. I'd say Blanton is well established as a quality major league starter at this point.
The only way the A's have a shot is to now win the remaining three games against the Angels and then sweep the remaining games against Seattle and hope the Rangers can sweep the Angels. With Bazooka Joe pitching tomorrow, it doesn't look good.
But I'm going to wait to write the postmortem on the season until the A's have officially flatlined. I'd just like the A's to keep the Angels from celebrating an AL West victory on our field two seasons in a row. It's too bad that a season that seemed done long ago will come down to this.
Believe me, I'm positive about this season. Very positive, but it doesn't mean that it isn't going to hurt.
