A’s 3, Brewers 3
Baseball apparently missed us as much as we missed baseball; today’s game had to be called in a tie after the tenth inning. On the strength of two homeruns from the unlikeliest of sources, the A’s tied the Brewers today at 3, as Bobby Crosby (barely got it out) and Travis Buck (no-doubter) provided the combined offense.
But no one cares about the actual game; it’s all about the first glimpse of our 2009 players. It was nice to see the power stroke from Crosby and Buck, as they each had the one big hit; Matt Holliday opened his A’s Spring Training campaign with a single; as did Sweeney, Tagg Bozied (read more of his story here; including his wife’s amazing off-season story), and Suzuki. A late extra-innings “double” by Rajai Davis was the last of the offense’s nine hits. Jack Hannahan collected two hits and a walk; the best line of the day, and Jason Giambi, wearing #16 once again for the A’s, went 0-3 in his chances.
Today’s game showed a variety of the A’s pitchers; as Outman started the game, pitching two great innings; allowing only a single while striking out one. Gonzalez followed him, allowing two hits; including a solo homerun. It is worthwhile to note that after the homerun, Jason Giambi approached the mound to calm down the easily-rattled pitcher, so chalk one up in the leadership column for the veteran. Mazzaro pitched the fifth, allowing two hits, but zero runs, and the sixth inning belonged to Chris Schroeder (a veteran RHP who was on the Nationals the past three seasons), who was impressive; striking out both Braun and Fielder.
Jeff Gray pitched a perfect seventh, but the pitching fell apart in the eighth with Jerry Blevins; who allowed the Brewers to tie the game on four hits. Jared Lansford relieved Blevins in the ninth, and got the A’s to extra innings, where Tyson Ross in to pitch the 10th. After a leadoff hit, and an intentional walk, Ross was able to get out of the inning, and the game was called.
In WBC news, Brad Ziegler pitched a good inning in the A's inter-squad game yesterday. WBC teams will report next week.
After a great extra innings game, three full game threads, and just shy of 1,000 comments, I think we’re ready for baseball!
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