Final Score: A's 3, Giants 2 Boxscore
Perhaps Matt Cain had the right idea after all, walking the middle of the order (Giambi, Holliday, Chavez) in the first inning to force home Ryan Sweeney, who had led off with a single. Ramon Ortiz tried throwing strikes to Chavez and Cust leading off the bottom of the 6th, with the Giants leading 2-1, and watched it turn into "Bomb And Bomber," as Chavez crushed a HR and then Cust crush-plus-oned a HR, giving the A's a 3-2 lead that would stand up as the game's final score.
The story of the day, though, was 21-year old lefty Brett Anderson. From our second-deck seats overlooking the A's bullpen, we (the exhausted group of AN volunteers) did not have a good look at the pitchers. Yet from any seat and any angle, one thing you can always see is on what part of the bat guys are putting the ball. Against Anderson, there were many balls hit on the hands and several more spun off the end of the bat, leading to quite a few "funky" hit balls put into play - bloops to third base, handcuffed choppers to second - and very few hit solidly.
Anderson's line: 6.2 IP, 6 hits, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K on just 86 pitches, 58 of them strikes. His only blip came in a two-run 5th inning, and even in that frame he was victimized more by well-placed hits than by well-hit balls, until Pablo Sandoval capped the rally with a solid RBI single to LF.
Meanwhile, the bullpen was excellent, shutting the Giants out for the final 2.1 innings. Andrew Bailey made his final case for the final relief spot, tossing 1.0 IP of scoreless ball to end Spring Training with an 0.66 ERA. Jerry Blevins got an out on the only pitch he threw and Russ Springer survived a pop-fly leadoff double in the 9th to record the save, thanks in large part to Travis Buck's diving catch of a soft line drive to RF.
All that's left now is for the A's to announce the cuts that will get their roster down to 25 guys, announce how they are adding Cahill and Anderson to the 40-man roster, work out at the Coliseum tomorrow in front of any fans who wish to watch for free, and then fly to Anaheim for Monday's 6:05pm game - the first of 162 that count.
Coming soon...A photo-philled recap of AN's Community Service work this morning for Newman Center and Rebuilding Together Oakland. Stay tuned!
UPDATE, 4:43pm: Susan Slusser reports that Andrew Bailey and Sean Gallagher have made the roster, with Gio Gonzalez and Daric Barton to AAA.
