Offense Comes Alive!

Who needs pitching, when you have this offense?

A's starter Guillermo Moscoso was more than serviceable, allowing 3 runs (1 unearned, more on that later) over 6 innings, while striking out 4 and walking only 1. Not a fantastic start, but I'll take it. His location was quite good, and his pitches were catching Baltimore's batters off guard all night. Interestingly, it looks like he's mixed in a new pitch that looks something like a splitter. He started using it two weeks ago on the 30th, and it has a nice velocity differential of about 5 mph from his fastball. Something to keep an eye out for, to be sure.

Brian Matusz walked into this game with an 8.77 ERA, and for a while, it looked like he was going to raise it even higher. After a quick first inning, he allowed three hits (two doubles) and two walks, only ending the inning after Pennington was tagged out at home on a beautiful play by C Matt Wieters. All in all, it was 3 runs allowed in the inning, and he allowed another run in the next inning by way of a solo shot to LF by Josh Willingham. And then...he settled down, retiring 11 of the next 13 batters he faced (immediately wiping out those lone 2 with double plays on both). His overall line of 6 runs allowed looks bad, but that's only because he was relieved by Troy Patton, who immediately allowed a 2 RBI double to Coco Crisp. Yay for bizarre inherited runner rule quirks!

Speaking of Baltimore's bullpen, they didn't have a very good night. Patton allowed 3 runs (including the 2 inherited ones), and Chris Jakubauskas allowed yet another, to bring the final score to 8-4, Athletics. Not a bad night for the A's. Now if only they could score like this on a consistent basis.

TONIGHT IN BRANDON ALLEN WATCH: 1-3, BB, 3B, 2R