Boxscore
Travis Buck's high chopper with the bases loaded and two out in the bottom of the 12th scored pinch-runner Rajai Davis and the Oakland A's pulled out a 6-5 victory against the Boston Red Sox.
The way the game started out, few people would have predicted the A's would go scoreless for ten innings and still win. Dana Eveland had a rocky first inning, allowing three runs before getting out of it leaving the bases loaded. Against Daisuke Matsuzaka, the A's quickly evened things up then went a little further, plating five runs of their own thanks to a Matt Holliday double and singles by Jack Cust, Travis Buck and Mark Ellis.
Matsuzaka's night was over after that, which was bad news for the A's (4-4). Justin Masterson came in to throw four quality innings, three of the 1-2-3 variety, allowing just a pair of hits while striking out six for the Red Sox (2-6). Meanwhile, Eveland settled down until struggling again in the fifth, unable to finish the inning before Boston tied it up.
Andrew Bailey took over to bail Eveland out, working a couple solid innings of his own as the bullpens of both teams combined to put up nothing but goose eggs on the scoreboard. Santiago Casilla, Russ Springer and Brad Ziegler kept the Red Sox off the board with Ziegler getting into and out of trouble in the 10th.
Sean Gallagher worked a quick 1-2-3 12th and Javier Lopez started the bottom half by walking Jason Giambi. Holliday moved him up with a grounder, then Lopez walked Cust (pitching around him) and Bobby Crosby. Davis then came in to run for Giambi and Kurt Suzuki went down on three pitches before Buck ended it, saving Bob Geren the need to figure out who to put at first base with Giambi removed, plus Nomar Garciaparra leaving after one inning because of calf tightness.
I'd offer some actual commentary on the game but the truth of it is I'm too tired for it. I will note this is Boston's worst start since 1996 and they've now lost five in a row in Oakland and 12 of their past 15 in the Coliseum. Yay for that.
The two teams meet up one more time tomorrow at 12:35 PM. It'll be Brett Anderson against ancient knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, who is twice Anderson's age (42 to 21).
Thank you and good night.
