OK, I lied.
I do care whether the A's win or not, here in the tail end of a 10-games-below-.500 season.
And win the A's did, on a unique way in the bottom of the ninth:
With Bobby Crosby on 2nd (single) and Emil Brown on 1st (HBP) with no outs and trailing in the bottom of the 9th 2-1, Ryan Sweeney dropped a first-pitch bunt against Joe Nathan.
Sweeney's bunt, while of the competent fair-and-on-the-ground variety, was hard and ill-placed: it bounced right back to Nathan, who wheeled and threw to 3rd, where the ball beat Crosby --
-- and tailed away from the Twins' third-baseman, glancing off his glove and bounding all the way down the left-field line and over the A's bullpen mound. Crosby scrambled to his feet at 3rd and scampered home, and Emil kept running all the way around from 1st to tally the winning run.
As I said, unique.
For most of the evening, it looked to be another Cust-or-bust game for the A's. Francisco Liriano shut the A's down with his filthy stuff, surrendering only another Custean moonshot. (Is it just me, or are Liriano's mechanics simply terrible? He's got both dor-K-style histrionic follow-throughs and Dan Meyer-style incomplete follow-throughs on every alternating pitch. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him blow his arm out again.)
Dallas Braden, thought not nearly as dominant as Liriano, matched him zero-for-zero until serving up a meatball that Denard Span launched into the seats in the 4th for a 2-run lead (Cust's solo HR keeping the A's close in the bottom half of that frame). Embree and Street closed the lid on the Twins' offense in the 7th and 8th-9th, respectively, with Street getting credit for the W.
I, for one, am not ready to sign on to the smallball "make the other team commit errors" school of thought. Yes, absolutely, having Sweeney bunt in that situation was the right call -- but let's keep in mind that the bunt, while competent, wasn't all that good and very nearly had the lead runner out.
But, damn, if that wasn't a fun ending.
The A's go for a ... second consecutive series win (?!?) tomorrow.
I do care whether the A's win or not, here in the tail end of a 10-games-below-.500 season.
And win the A's did, on a unique way in the bottom of the ninth:
With Bobby Crosby on 2nd (single) and Emil Brown on 1st (HBP) with no outs and trailing in the bottom of the 9th 2-1, Ryan Sweeney dropped a first-pitch bunt against Joe Nathan.
Sweeney's bunt, while of the competent fair-and-on-the-ground variety, was hard and ill-placed: it bounced right back to Nathan, who wheeled and threw to 3rd, where the ball beat Crosby --
-- and tailed away from the Twins' third-baseman, glancing off his glove and bounding all the way down the left-field line and over the A's bullpen mound. Crosby scrambled to his feet at 3rd and scampered home, and Emil kept running all the way around from 1st to tally the winning run.
As I said, unique.
For most of the evening, it looked to be another Cust-or-bust game for the A's. Francisco Liriano shut the A's down with his filthy stuff, surrendering only another Custean moonshot. (Is it just me, or are Liriano's mechanics simply terrible? He's got both dor-K-style histrionic follow-throughs and Dan Meyer-style incomplete follow-throughs on every alternating pitch. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him blow his arm out again.)
Dallas Braden, thought not nearly as dominant as Liriano, matched him zero-for-zero until serving up a meatball that Denard Span launched into the seats in the 4th for a 2-run lead (Cust's solo HR keeping the A's close in the bottom half of that frame). Embree and Street closed the lid on the Twins' offense in the 7th and 8th-9th, respectively, with Street getting credit for the W.
I, for one, am not ready to sign on to the smallball "make the other team commit errors" school of thought. Yes, absolutely, having Sweeney bunt in that situation was the right call -- but let's keep in mind that the bunt, while competent, wasn't all that good and very nearly had the lead runner out.
But, damn, if that wasn't a fun ending.
The A's go for a ... second consecutive series win (?!?) tomorrow.
