At some point the hitting is going to meet the pitching halfway, and when it does it will be a beautiful thing. For now we’ll have to settle on tying runs scoring on strikeouts.
Five outs away from wasting yet another magnificent mound performance, the A’s- with a little help from their friends to the north- squeezed out two runs to make a winner of Trevor Cahill. More on him later.
Up until the eighth, the A’s looked all too comfortable playing the part of the league’s punching bag (at least on this coast). On those rare occasions they actually put runners on base it was for teasing purposes only, although we can blame the men in blue for keeping the A’s off the board in the third.
Down 1-0 after seven, Andy LaRoche greeted Ricky Romero with a lead-off, stand-up double. Cliff Pennington bunted LaRoche over to the next bag, and fortunately for the A’s, Romero decided to get the sure out at first rather than throw to third where he would have surely gotten his man.
With LaRoche on third with one out, this exchANge ensued:
Okay, all we need to do is make a flyball out to tie it
That’s something we should be able to do.
…right?
by cuppingmaster on Apr 7, 2011 11:24 AM PDT reply actions
if all we had to do was ground out or strike out we'd be set
by OptimistPrime on Apr 7, 2011 11:25 AM PDT up reply actions
So on a 2-2 count to Coco Crisp, Jason Frasor- in relief of Romero- uncorked a throw in the dirt that Crisp swung and missed at, the ball skipped away, and LaRoche scored to tie things up on your run-of-the-mill wild pitch-strikeout.
Naturally.
As Kyli noted: OUR STRENGTH IS THE FAILURE OF OTHERS.
{nods}
Having been blessed twice in the same inning, Crisp decided to take matters into his own feet, and he swiped second and third base around a Daric Barton strikeout. With a chance to play hero, Conor Jackson delivered again- he had already saved a run in the sixth with a sliding catch- knocking a base hit to left to bring home Coco with the winner.
The day of course belonged to Cahill, who struck out seven while walking no one. He retired the side in order in six of the eight innings he pitched, and at one time retired 12 consecutive batters. Just a brilliant effort when it was needed the most.
A side congrats to Mark Ellis for becoming the thirteenth Oakland A to play in 1000 games.
(And 67M comes to the rescue once more)
