In the opening game thread, baseballgirl pointed out the absurdity of one team having Mauer and Morneau back to back in the lineup, and one team having Patterson and Pennington. Baseball is an absurd game, so it was Pennington who clobbered one of 5 A's HRs, Patterson who turned in a three-hit night, and the A's who pounded out 17 hits, 10 of them for extra bases. The other HRs were hit by Cust, Ellis, Suzuki, and Barton, with Ellis and Barton unloading 3-run bombs as the A's opened the game up in the middle innings.
Clayton Mortensen started the game serving up a leadoff HR to Span, Span, Span, Span, Span, Eggs, Sausage, and Span, but settled down to turn in 6 solid innings of one run ball. He did not record a strikeout, but recorded 12 outs on the ground.
Jerry Blevins deserves special mention, too. Though tonight's scoreless inning came in a blowout, Blevins has looked outstanding since returning to the big leagues. His velocity is good, his secondary pitches solid, and he has thrown strikes aggressively -- reminiscent of the Blevins we saw in 2008, not the one hitters enjoyed, both in the big leagues and at AAA, in 2009.
Santiago Casilla deserves mention too, in that it's not often a pitcher starts the 9th inning with a 12-1 lead and leaves with the team's closer frantically getting loose just in case. He was charged with 4 runs in 0.1 IP.
Finally, also worthy of mention on the positive side (IMO): Bob Geren, following up his yanking of Scott Hairston in the 12th inning on Wednesday after he failed to run out a pop fly by sitting him tonight. Point made, message delivered. And at least tonight, the A's did just fine without him.
