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Happy birthday, Hideki Matsui. Enjoy this gift-wrapped Yankees win as a present, courtesy of the Oakland Athletics.
Looking back on tonight's game, it's hard to remember we once had the lead. Carlos Gonzalez, in a rare non-double for him, singled in Mark Ellis in the 2nd inning, putting the A's up 1-0. Blanton was throwing zeroes, retiring 8 straight from the 1st through the fourth, and retired the side in order in the fifth. Andy Pettitte kept the A's bats quiet after the initial tally, making the battle look a lot like a quick pitcher's duel, destined to finish in just over two hours.
But all of a sudden, Blanton couldn't do his part. The high pitch count seemingly get the best of him, Joe loaded the bases to start the sixth on a single by Jeter, and consecutive walks to Abreu and A-Rod. Following a later to be determined useless chat with Curt Young, Blanton served up a slam to Matsui, whose shot cleared the right field fence, and stuck a crooked number - 4 - on the board.
And just as quickly, the good Joe came back. Shaking it off like as if it were a bad dream, Joe closed out the side in the sixth, going 1-2-3, and going into the seventh without any more damage. But as the A's bats were largely quiet, Blanton's 4-batter long out of body experience proved to be too much.
Tonight's game marked Blanton's 9th loss against only three wins, and continued the A's offensive struggles with him on the mound. As mentioned in the opening thread, the A's had only mustered about 2 1/2 runs per game in which Blanton had come down on the wrong side of the final ledger, and tonight, they couldn't even come close.
It'd be nice to blame the wind, which blowing in from left field knocked down two would-be Custian blasts, including what would have been a three-run shot in his second at bat, but blaming nature for the A's woes would be as foolish as blaming the umpires, or the uniforms. When the Yankees had one big opportunity, Matsui slammed the ball out of the park. When we had our opportunities, we got slammed ourselves. Just one pitch. One home run. One loss.
