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The A's win! The A's whose bats have been much maligned all season long, semi-came awake today against the Angels to even out the series at one game a piece with a 5-3 victory. Tyson Ross got the start for the A's tonight, his first of the season in the green and gold. He had a good outing for the A's going six innings, allowing two earned runs, on seven hits, walking no one and K'ing three. The A's got the scoring started with a home run in the top of the fitth from a most unexpected source, Daric Barton. Barton's blast off of Dan Haren was his first since October 1st, 2010 and gave the A's a 1-0 lead.
The Angels tied it up in the bottom half of the fifth, then tacked on a second run in the sixth. The A's chased Haren from the game and then in the eighth Kevin Jepsen took the mound for the Halos. As an A's fan this year would know, even a one run deficit can see insurmountable to this year's (heck, the last few years') offensively challenged A's. The eighth started with another strikeout of Josh Donaldson, then two walks to Cliff Pennington and Jemile Weeks got things started. Coco Crisp who has struggled mightily this season came to the plate and swung on the first pitch and instead of a weak pop out, he lined it to center scoring Pennington to tie it. Josh Reddick then followed that with a ground rule double over the short right field corner wall to give the A's the lead 3-2. Jepsen was sent to the showers, David Carpenter came in and Yoenis Cespedes came up big with a two run single to pad the lead to 5-2. Grant Balfour came in in the ninth inning, allowed a solo shot to Vernon Wells, but no further damage secured the A's victory.
Good game for the A's! Nice to get a win! Let's do this again a few more times!