Entering this game, the A's had been cruising, mostly on the back of the starting pitching and some timely hitting. While the starting pitching held up its end of the bargain tonight, the offense and bullpen decided to stay in Oakland for the first game of the road trip.
Witasick and Sauerbeck put on an inning reminiscent of Rincon and Mecir back in the day. But the truth was that the A's offense went back to May offense all of sudden and the A's likely didn't have much of a chance after the Swisher/Buckner impression in left field (I'm not going to get on Swish considering how great he's been for the team this year). In Coors Field, of all places.
Bobby Crosby also had a horrid at-bat in the 8th. Mesa had been all over the place and he swings at the first pitch with the bases loaded. Ugh. That's the thing with young players still learning their way through the majors...sometimes they just do something brain dead. Maybe Crosby thought he was going to get a big, juicy fastball after Mesa was wild, but regardless, it seemed like a guy who was overeager to me.
Now the A's turn to Esteban Loaiza to try and start a new streak. I'm not going to get too down on a team that just won 10 in a row. You win a lot, you lose some.
The best news out of tonight? Justin Duchscherer started the game in Sacramento and his line was an inning pitched, one hit, no runs. He can not come back soon enough so the A's can strengthen their pen. Just remember ANers, Duke coming back is like the Angels getting Scot Shields back. Duke makes that much of a difference in the quality of the A's pen. Hopefully he came out of the appearance feeling fine.
