This is a large win for the A's. It shouldn't have been that close, given the seven walks in the first five innings. Only one of them came around to score and that was Kotsay on Swisher's home run.
Speaking of Swisher, he has to be considered early season MVP for the A's, even with the excellent April Eric Chavez is having. The guy has a 1.200 OPS for the month, nine home runs and 20 RBIs already. By the way, this is the beauty of when you put all your hot hitters together, Mr. Macha. You get Swisher driving in Kotsay and then Chavy following up with a bomb of his own which turned out to be the difference in the game.
Blanton had a very encouraging performance battling through some very tight jams.
Joe Kennedy and Kiko Calero still have a 0.00 ERA and I'll be the first to say, I've been wrong about Joe Kennedy. He's been more than I ever imagined out of the pen so far. I can only hope it continues.
And a big bravo to Justin Duchscherer who had to get four outs to rebound from his last performance. He went right after the Texas hitters and showed absolutely no fear of the blown save. It was a beautiful rebound.
If the A's could somehow get two more players going offensively, and Mark Ellis showed flashes of coming out of his funk tonight, this offense would not be so putrid. If Bradley could heat up a little more and Ellis gets hot, the offense should be able to score enough runs to win games.
Now, the rotation turns over and the A's have Zito and Harden going the next two games. We shall see if the tide can turn or if tonight was an aberration.
