What a Coincidence! A's Swept at Fenway

So, Miss .500 isn't so looking so unappealing right now, hmm?  Well, I don't think we'll be seeing her for awhile.  Maybe not for the rest of the season.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Yankees, the Red Sox, John Lackey, Bob Geren, and that annoying AAMCO commercial.

Another day against the beasts of the East, another defeat.  At least it didn't take five hours this time to decide a winner. Unlike the previous two games, the A's showed little fight today, falling meekly by a 6-3 score to the BoSox.

I may not the most qualified guy on the panel to discuss Brett Anderson's recent struggles, whether they are derived from facing a pair of potent lineups on consecutive starts or from a possible injury, but the young left-hander clearly did not have it today, as the five runs on nine hits he allowed in just five innings would attest.

The big blows were delivered off the bats of Carl Crawford (three-run homerun in the second) and Adrián González (two-run shot in the fourth).  The latter blast came after the A's had closed to within 3-2 in the top half of the inning when Kurt Suzuki was hit by a pitch, stole second base, and scored on a base hit by Daric Barton.  Barton, who also doubled home a run in the sixth, recorded two hits in each of three games this weekend.

Suzuki was hit by a John Lackey offering just a half inning after both benches were warned (DeJesus was clipped in the first, and Anderson hit Crawford in the third), but Lackey was allowed to continue, and he later hit Conor Jackson with a pitch in the sixth, again without incident (unless you count Jackson scoring on Barton's two-bagger as an incident).

Either I'm confused about the rules, or Lackey was the recipient of home cooking.  Either way, elcroata wasn't very thrilled about it:

(extremely) sick of double standards - you either issue the warning or just shut the (heck) up. But you can't issue the warning and have the same pitcher hit two batters, no matter how unintentional it might seem, just because Sox' bullpen is tired, dude.

Uh-huh.  Then again, you'd think that your manager would at least move from his post to challenge the non-call.  Oh.  Never mind.

Oakland managed a mini-tease in the seventh- leaving two runners on- then saved its fan base from any further suffering, going in order in the eighth and ninth.

The A's now head to Baltimore.  You remember the Orioles.  They're the guys the A's swept last week, kicking off good vibrations heading into the Yankee series.  Seems longer than a week ago, actually.