Ellie got his knock anyway- his 43rd in September- fighting off a pitch for an infield single to drive in the game's second run, resulting in this awkward exchange in the booth:
Fosse: "Fister got fisted!"
Kuiper: "I'm not even going there."
The wacky inning continued with Ellis getting picked off first, but as Daric Barton broke for home, the throw went to the plate where Mariner's catcher Adam Moore applied a sweeping tag to, well, no one. Barton merely bluffed, and Ellis ended up at second.
More fisting ensued- Fosse's words, not mine- with Jack Cust's base hit into no man's land scoring Barton and Ellis to make it 4-0. Five hits in the fourth and not one of them hard.
If Fister was feeling the sting of seeing-eye singles, he was about to buckle under a beastly blast by Chris Carter, whose two-run homer with one out in the sixth increased the A's advantage to 6-zip.
Ball go far.
Meanwhile Gio Gonzalez was walking the proverbial tightrope, issuing five free passes to go with four hits allowed, but thanks in part to eight strikeouts, not one Mariner scored against him. And with seven scoreless frames, Ojos Locos achieved two nifty numbers: 15 wins and 200 innings pitched.
The A's tacked on another run in the sixth and one more in the eighth on a long homerun by Cliff Pennington, who was surely feeling left out of the A's 16-hit parade. It was a well-balanced attack, led by Rajai Davis (4-for-5). Five other A's- Barton, Carter, Cust, Ellis, and Kevin Kouzmanoff- recorded two hits each, and only Kurt Suzuki was blanked among the starters.
But why dwell on the negative on a night the A's earned their 78th win- their most since 2006- and kept alive their slim hopes of finishing at .500.
And, look, we get October baseball after all! Oh.
