A's Lose in Lackluster Showing 7-2

I'm not sure what's up with Brett Anderson, but he looked nothing like himself tonight. His sterling control was entirely gone (2011: 1.48 BB/9, Tonight: 4 BB in 4.2 IP, including one with the bases loaded), and it showed, as he allowed four runs on six hits. By the end, every ball was hit hard off of him, and he managed to expend 97 pitches in only 4.2 innings. There were times he looked absolutely dominant, to be sure—in the second inning, after he allowed a single and hit a batter, Anderson struck out David Murphy, Mike Napoli, and Craig Gentry in 14 pitches combined. But those moments were few and far between, and in the end, Anderson was stuck with a very deserved loss.

Colby Lewis, on the other hand, had one of the more bizarre lines I've seen in a boxscore in some time: 7.1 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, and...NO strikeouts. And not only that, he had 5 groundouts to 12 flyouts. Normally, a heavy flyball pitcher can't hope to survive by allowing 26 of 27 batters to put the ball in play, but this is the A's offense, where a pitcher can bank on inducing deep flyout after deep flyout without incident. Cliff Pennington did hit manage to hit a solo homer to RF, but it was only one of the measly two runs that the A's managed to plate.

There's really not much else to say. It was just one of those "go get 'em tomorrow" losses. As good as the rotation is, we can't expect perfection day in, day out. They're allowed a day off.