When your bullpen gets up a handful of minutes into the game and it isn't injury-related, you're in for a long night. Such was the case for rookie Carlos Torres and the Chicago White Sox tonight as the A's sprayed hits all over the Cell in an 11-3 laugher, scoring in all but three innings. As the game started they noted Torres pitches out of the stretch all the time and given his line (2/3 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 1 SO, 2 HR) I'm not surprised. He only threw six pitches for balls but when you factor in he threw more warming up before the game than he did in it (22)...well, yeah.
As a sign of how evenly distributed the 20 hits the A's had were, everyone in the lineup had at least one and Kurt Suzuki was the only hitter who didn't have at least two. Ryan Sweeney tore it up (ahem) with four against his former team, Rajai Davis had three and both scored three times. Jack Cust had a big three-run homer in the first after Torres got the second out on a sacrifice fly by Suzuki. Mark Ellis followed by depositing another one over the fence for back-to-back homers and an early shower for Torres. Then again, I don't know that he really worked up a sweat to begin with. After that sacrifice fly the last ten runs by the A's came with two out, always a good thing to see.
Two more runs in the second helped stake Brett Tomko to a big 7-0 lead early and while he didn't complete the sixth his outing was more than enough to maintain a comfortable lead. He'd wind up allowing 3 earned on 6 hits, 1 walk and 3 strikeouts, also giving up a pair of homers to Mark Kotsay and Paul Konerko. He had no trouble at all with the rest of the lineup, probably because none of their last names started with a K. Lefties Craig Breslow, Jerry Blevins and Brad Kilby looked great in relief of Tomko, combining to allow just a hit and a walk (both by Breslow) in 3 2/3 innings.
Just one of those fun games to be able to watch as the season winds down. The, uh, series finale is tomorrow.
