Horrific Bullpen Work Costs A's In Extras, Gio a Win

I....I....I don't really know what to say about this game. It seemed so normal for the first nine innings.

Here are the low-lights: Tonight's game ended 6-4, with the Reds on the good side of the score. Believe it or not, the game was 1-1 going to the ninth, and it did go extras

The A's managed to hold the Reds to a single unearned run (Pennington error in the first) for nine innings of tonight's game, and if you were betting on the A's with that line, you'd be wrong. They did manged to tie the game in the fifth on a Jackson single (Daric Barton was thrown out on the play, oversliding third base), and the game went into the ninth tied at one.

Things went a little haywire from there. Andrew Bailey--brought into the tie game--made the fatal decision of issuing the two-out walk and an even worse decision ignoring the runner at first, who stole second base on a play that could almost be called defensive indifference. Of course, Jay Bruce off the bench hit an 0-2 pitch for a single, and the Reds took the 2-1 lead.

Kevin Kouzmanoff tried to send A's fans home happy with his blast to open the A's half of the ninth, but sadly, it only tied the game. And when the bullpen switched from Bailey to Wuertz in the tenth, all hell broke loose.

Ramon Hernandez took the lead back for the Reds with a homerun to open the inning. Phillips singled, Wuertz got his first out on a sac bunt, and was replaced by Bowers. Votto promptly homered to increase the lead to 5-2, and just for good measure, Rolen followed that with a homerun, as well. I won't even mention the almost-homerun that Rajai dropped at the fence. It's bad enough, already.

The A's pulled a patented teAse in their half of the tenth, loading the bases with two walks and a single with no one out, but Ryan "Worst .300 hitter in Baseball" Sweeney took a 3-1 swing that was about as good as Bailey's 0-2 pitch and grounded out. Kouzmanoff grounded out to get the second run of the inning home, and Cust struck out. Again. What else would he do?

Lost in the disaster was Gio Gonzalez's terrific start--7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K--which was absolutely wasted on the black hole of this offense. And unless he's a secret power-hitter and a great pitcher, I don't see things getting much better.