With the exception of Mark Ellis, who went 2-4 with a double, every single A's player chalked up at least one strikeout against the Scott Kazmir tonight, en route to the pitcher's career high 13 K's.
You could say you saw it coming after the A's went 1-2-3 on strikeouts in the first. You could say you saw it coming when the A's first six outs went by way of K's after 2. You might even say you could see it coming when the lineups were announced. But I had a feeling this would be ugly just by the fact the A's were playing away from home on a Saturday night.
For some reason, the A's are 0-8 on Saturday night away games this year, including tonight, falling by scores of:
- Anaheim 2, Oakland 1 (AN recap)
- Texas 7, Oakland 0 (AN recap)
- Tampa Bay 3, Oakland 2 (AN recap)
- Baltimore 8, Oakland 3 (AN recap)
- New York Mets 1, Oakland 0 (AN recap)
- Minnesota 4, Oakland 3 (AN recap)
- Detroit 5, Oakland 2 (AN recap)
- Tampa Bay 14, Oakland 3
Eight games. 44 runs for the opposition, 14 for the A's, and in no games have the A's scored more than 3. This means the A's are A) Partying too hard on Friday and into Saturday, B) Looking forward to Saturday nights on the town in a new city or C) None of the above.
Needless to say, it's an ugly trend.
Oddly enough, the Devil Rays drubbing of the A's tonight didn't hurt that much. As the runs started to pile up, we were numb to it. 2-0 may as well have been 9-0, the way the A's were hitting (a.k.a. not hitting).
Eventually it was, in fact, as the Rays chipped away seemingly every inning, making it 3-0 after three, 4-0 after five, 6-0 after six and 9-0 after seven. After Blanton gave way following more than 100 pitches through five innings, the A's relief corps got worse and worse, peaking in Jay Marshall's AA-worthy 5 earned runs in a third of an inning.
On the radio, the A's announcers even said backup catcher Rob Bowen was warming up in case of further disaster. At least that would have been interesting. The way I see it, if you're going to lose this way, you might as well get a position player on the mound. You might as well let 13 strikeouts turn into 17 or 20. You might as well let 14 runs turn to 30, as by that point, you're part of history. Instead, the A's just made us want to look away.
