UPDATE, 10:32pm PDT: As the evening wears on, the news has gone from "Harden traded for Lars Anderson" to "Deal not finalized but likely" to "Deal seems to have fallen through," so who the heck knows.
The news of the day is not that the A's -- yawn -- scored a bunch of runs yet again. The news is that the A's have reportedly sent pitcher Rich Harden to the Boston Red Sox for 1B prospect Lars Anderson and a Player To Be Named Later. However, just before the final out was recorded, Harden was shown sitting in the A's dugout so he may not have gotten the news yet. If you see him, perhaps mention it.
Anyhoo, early on the teams traded runs as neither Guillermo Moscoso nor Nick Blackburn was able to put a "0" on the board in either of the first two innings. The A's matched the Twins' 1st inning run with one of their own, thanks to a Coco Crisp single, steal of 2B on which Joe Mauer's throw went into CF allowing Crisp to go to 3B, and a Josh Willingham sacrifice fly. So pretty much a rally by the two OFers discussed in many trade rumors, but so far traded nowhere.
The Twins scored again in the 2nd and the A's answered back again, this time with 2 runs to take a 3-2 lead. Following a leadoff single by Conor "Uh oh, where I will play when Lars gets here?" Jackson, Cliff Pennington keyed the 2nd inning uprising with a double which extended his hitting streak to 14 games. Following a walk to load the bases, a Landon Powell DP tied the game. You hate to see a DP even if it scores a run, but let's face it: A comebacker might have yielded a 1-2-6-3 triple play. Jemile Weeks then sliced a triple to left-center field, his 5th triple in 45 games, giving the A's a lead they would not give back.
A 4-run bottom of the 5th chased Blackburn, highlighted by Scott Sizemore's bases clearing double down the 3B base line. Meanwhile, Hideki Matsui was in the middle of everything yet again, singling twice and walking twice, as the A's continue to hit up and down the lineup every bit as much as they didn't hit up and down the lineup for the season's first 3 months.
One "false alarm" came when Ryan Sweeney pinch hit for David DeJesus to lead off the 4th. The presumption that DeJesus had been lifted because he had just been traded turned out to be false. He just had a sore thumb, an injury that's all the rage in Oakland the past 24 hours.
So it appears that DeJesus stays, Harden goes, Lars Anderson arrives to save the franchise, and the duo of Crisp and Willingham sit in trade deadline limbo for up to another 16 hours. Life in major league baseball at the end of July.
