A's Are Homer-Happy, McCarthy Gets First Win, Cook Makes Bid For Awesome

Why hello there, Miss. .524. Aren't you looking particularly fetching this fine evening? Would you like to dance?

For the first time in almost a year, the A's are actually over the .500 mark, and it looks good on them after a well-played game tonight. No, Michael Taylor didn't play, but Coco Crisp let us know that he's not quite dead yet. His arm? For sure. But not the rest of him.

The first inning could have gone better for the A's and McCarthy. After the A's were retired in order (leaving Cespedes to lead off yet again), McCarthy gave up a leadoff double to the Orioles. Coco Crisp let the runner advance from second to third on a fly ball, and allowed the sac fly to score on an extremely shallow fly ball. I believe that OP's hamster could have thrown the runner out (read the game thread). Basically that run was all on Coco. (Spoiler: He would make up for it.)

The A's didn't waste much time tying the game, after a Kila walk in the second inning, Suzuki mashed a two-out double, and knocked in the game-tying RBI. Just right after that, Sogard (who replaced Hughes at the last minute) smoked a homerun to give the A's a 3-1 lead. Although McCarthy would have a few tense moments (runners at 1st and 3rd and one out in the bottom of the fifth), he put in a 7-inning, 5-hit, 2-run solid effort in his first win of the season.

Josh Reddick got into the fun with a solo homerun in the sixth to give the A's a cushion and McCarthy would give up one more run before departing the game. The A's would steal another run as Coco walked, stole second, and was singled in by Reddick. With the score 5-2, Ryan Cook came into the game and literally just dominated the game, striking out four in the eighth inning. That is NOT a typo; Cook struck out the first three; Suzuki couldn't reach the final strike, so the runner reached first. No problem for Cook; he struck out the next batter too. (And they were no slouches: Hardy, Markakis, Jones, and Wieters.) So he was pretty much awesome.

Balfour was only slightly less awesome, but did slam the door in the ninth (probably hearing closer footsteps from Cook), and the A's took home the win, by the score of 5-2.

This game was fun! Let's do it again tomorrow!

Gametime 4:00PM tomorrow night. Ross vs. Chen.