Final Score: Angels 4, A’s 3. Garret Anderson’s 2-run HR broke a 2-2 tie in the 6th inning, and the A’s rally came up one short in the 9th as the Angels hung on to beat the A’s.
You know that problem where you run out of month at the end of the money? That’s kind of what has happened to me on AN. I’ve run out of different ways to dissect and analyze the A’s same-old same-old futility and it’s only September 4th. There are just so many ways to discuss more runners left on base than there are rats in the popcorn (well, almost), or the tendency to make bad pitchers suddenly look good for a day and the ability to let good pitchers off the hook when they are pitching badly, or the insistence on seeing pitches when surely Abner Doubleday intended that the batters would actually hit them.
There’s just not a lot of new ground to cover there. It’s a little sad when your #2 and #3 hitters are coming up with the game on the line and you’re sure they will both strike out, even against a pitcher who is clearly either suffering from epilepsy or is under the mistaken impression that God gives a flying fuck about his curveball.
Props to Shannon Stewart for driving in all 3 runs and single-handedly keeping the A’s in the game from start to finish, and to Rob Bowen for 3 quality at-bats producing two more hits. And anti-props to Nick Swisher, whose hitting lately has been so bad you tend to overlook that his defense has been pretty lame as well. He’s one guy who really needs to get his act together, because unlike many of his current teammates Swisher actually has the talent to get it done. And he’s not getting it done—and he hasn’t for a while.
