Ah, the wafting scent of a 4-day-old dollar dog sends me into a reverie over this game, recollecting the A's pattern of old in winning ballgames: timely and powerful punishment of mediocre pitching (DJ with a pair of solo HRs, Swisher with one of his own, and Cust with a hard RBI single), making the other team pay for its mistakes (the Swisher HBP and the Vazquez E in the 7th), effective starting pitching working to contact (Blanton was masterful the first 2 times through the Rangers lineup, then started to allow their hits to bunch but minimized the damage), and shut-down relief work.
As disappointing as the A's have been this year, they're still a significantly better team than the Rangers. Continuing to shove the Rangers down in the cellar is nice confirmation of that.
And I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I'm thinking that DJ, for all his faults, would still be a good backup plan to hang onto for the next couple of years. Yes, the Rangers pitching sucks, but it's always useful to have a player who will punish bad pitching.
Now, I'm off to get on the phone and get in queue for Extra Innings to vow my undying devotion to Jack Cust. I'll identify myself as "Poppy on the Peninsula."
A's 7, Rangers 3. Blanton, pitching in what must have been an emotional situation in front of his family, was his typical bulldog self.
