Phil Coke had never thrown 7 innings before, but he has now. He had never thrown as many as 94 pitches in a game but he has now. What he didn't do tonight was to give up a run.
Meanwhile, A's pitchers walked 11, not a good strategy when you need to give up exactly -1 runs to have any chance of winning. Gio Gonzalez skated through 6 innings of shutout ball despite walking 6, partly because he also struck out 6, partly because he gave up only 2 hits and partly because all 6 walks came with two outs.
It was scoreless until the 7th, when Tyson Ross coughed up an RBI double to Ryan Raburn, who has never hosted Match Game -- though coincidentally, Ross had about as good control tonight as Fannie Flag and Jerry Blevins looked more like Charles Nelson Reilly than he like a major league pitcher. With Brett Somers unavailable, Bobby Cramer came in to retire all four batters he faced. Yay, Bobby.
As for the A's offense, Conor Jackson had two of the A's three hits and there was no drama to be had facing a 3-run deficit going to the 9th. In fact the A's aversion to scoring position was so intense tonight that when Josh Willingham correctly threw to 3B on an 8th inning sacrifice fly, no A's were there to catch the ball.
Memo to the A's: It's ok to be at third base. It's ok on defense and it's even more ok on offense. In fact, if you want to go crazy and just make it all the way to the 5-pointed one, that would be just ducky as well.
This was a stupid game and it has been fired.
