The A's should not have lost this game (they lost 6-2 in 12 innings). They had not one, but TWO opportunities to end the game tonight with runners in scoring position with their hired gun future Hall of Famer up at bat. Course the strange thing is was that I was wishing that Cust was still in the game in extras and not Piazza. Maybe that was just me. But I didn't really understand pinch running for Cust. I know that you didn't want to wind up making an out at second base if you were going to bunt, but Swisher was the winning run at that point.
As for the pitching, the A's used their two best relievers (Street threw two innings and Embree went out for the second inning he wasn't able to get out of) and wound up getting nothing out of it. I honestly thought that the A's were playing with fire when they did send Embree out for that second inning because Toronto, in particular the middle of their lineup, seems to mash lefties really well.
On the positive side, Loaiza looked good again, although I'll wait until he faces someone other than Toronto to call his return a success. His velocity didn't top 89 from what I saw. Then again, I was watching on the Toronto feed and who knows what their speed gun is like. Most of the time Loaiza's fastball seemed in the 86 mph range. That doesn't bode well for him down the road unless he gets a little more giddyup on the fastball.
Again, the A's had enough chances to end this before they got to the 12th inning, but that's the way it goes in 2007. <sigh> I'm going to bed.
