All wins are good, some wins feel better than others. In a lost season, messing up a rival's season feels good and today we did that making the Angels' playoff hopes as dim as they can be though not officially out of it yet. To do it in a come from behind fashion makes it even sweeter.
Rich Harden got the start for the A's - his problem all season has been surrendering home runs - and today that was no different as he allowed dingers to Bobby Abreu and Vernon Wells. The A's offense meanwhile was asleep at the switch, unable to muster any baserunners until the top of the fifth when David DeJesus got on board with a single. Trailing 3-0 the A's finally got on the board in the eighth to narrow the lead to 3-2. In sort of typical fashion for this year in the bottom half of the inning a Peter Bourjos single plated two Halos to restore the three run lead and with three outs to go put Los Angeles up 5-2.
Instead of sitting down and losing this one and despite basically having the Sacramento River Cats out there - the A's came through. Josh Willingham started it out with a home run. After Michael Taylor struck out, Scott Sizemore managed a single, followed by another single from Chris Carter. The key play came against the next batter (Adam Rosales) when closer Jordan Walden threw a ball into center field resulting in everyone being safe and Sizemore scoring to make it 5-4. Kurt Suzuki followed that with a double to plate Carter and the game was tied. To set up a force Mike Scioscia intentionally walked Jemile Weeks to face Coco Crisp. Crisp came through with a sac fly to Bourjos, Rosales scored from third A's up 6-5.
Enter Andrew Bailey with a near 1-2-3 bottom half and the A's are winners. Fun game. Go A's!