The Nightmare Continues - A's Lose in Walkoff by Hamilton

Ever seem to have one of those days when everyone's on your case from your teacher down to your best girl friend? Well, that's a lot like what today's loss felt like.

With a gritty, but futile performance by Brandon McCarthy and a seemingly 1-2-3 inning by Bailey, the A's managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.

Josh Willingham got the A's on the board in the second.  Swinging at the first pitch he saw, he crushed one over the left-center wall, for the A's first lead of the series. Cliff Peninngton added to this, after the A's played station-to-station baseball, after David DeJesus walked and Landon Powell singled, Pennington singled home DeJesus from second with two outs, as the A's moved ahead, 2-0. Jemile Weeks kept the second inning party going, singling in Powell for a 3-0 A's lead. Coco Crisp walked and set the stage for Hideki Matsui to do some damage.  Yorvit Torrealba decided to block Matsui's swing though and he was called for catcher's interference and was granted first base, scoring Pennington, and spotting McCarthy a 4-0 lead.

Torrealba made up for it the bottom of the inning, crushing a McCarthy offering after Weeks booted one (that was inexplicably not called an error by the Texas scorer) that scored Mitch Moreland and missed being a home run by a couple feet. McCarthy and Co. held though, and went into the third, leading 4-1.

In the top of the fifth, what was essentially a base hit for Scott Sizemore was turned into a fielder's choice when Willingham was caught between first and second on a bloop hit to right.  Matsui scored from third though, and the A's moved ahead, 5-1.

In the bottom of fifth, the Rangers came back, and boy, did they.  First, Torealba and Endy Chavez both had infield singles, followed by an Ian Kinsler double to deep left, on a pitch that had the power to get out, just not height.  The Kinsler double scored Torealba, while a sacrifice to right field by Elvis Andrus scored Chavez.  Another sacrifice by Josh Hamilton to second base scored Kinsler, to make it a 5-4 game. Then Adrian Beltre slapped his 18th of the year to deep left and tied the game, 5-5.  It was only the third home run McCarthy allowed all year.

Tommy Hunter relieved Colby Lewis in the top of the seventh and was greeted by Coco.  Crisp untied it with a towering shot shot to right, into a section of A's fans visiting the Ball Park at Arlington.

Joey Devine pitched a spotty, but effective seventh. Grant Balfour pitched a perfect eighth.  And Andrew Bailey, in to shut down the Rangers and give McCarthy his first win since April 10th, pitched what appeared to be a perfect ninth, but when Andrus collided with Conor Jackson, Andrus stayed alive. A weak throw by Weeks was blamed by Controneo--a base hit was ruled for Andrus.  It allowed Josh Hamilton to come to bat. And Josh Hamilton killed it--a two-out blast to the upper deck in right field.

Texas wins, 7-6.

Ever get the feeling it just ain't your year?  A's finish the series and the first half of the season before the All-Star Break tomorrow.  Game time is 12:05pm, PST.