Granted, it was against Yusmeiro Petit and Dan Otero, but the A's absolutely crushed the Giants by a final score of 8-1 in this afternoon's game; the last one before the A's open the season (ha!) at home against Seattle. Tommy Milone pitched two innings, picking up the win, and allowing one run on two hits, while striking out three. De Los Santos pitched a perfect third, Noberto allowed only one hit in the fourth, Schlichting pitched the fifth and sixth with two hits and no runs, Scribner pitched the seventh and eighth, allowing just two hits, and Blevins pitched a perfect ninth.
With the starting rotation now set, and consisting of Brandon McCarthy, Bartolo Colon, Tom Milone and Graham Godfrey, the bullpen of Balfour, Blevins, Carignan, Cook, De Los Santos, Fuentes, and Norberto will start to settle into roles.
Meanwhile, on the offensive side of the game, Josh Donaldson had a game; going 4 for 5 with two homeruns and 5 RBI. He joins Ka'aihue, Gomes and Weeks as the A's with multi-hits in this one; Gomes also had a homerun. I'm penciling in Donaldson at third on Friday.
So, we have a team! And a starting rotation! And I'm really not sure how they will do, so literally, that's why they play the games.
A quick recap on position players:
Catcher: Suzuki/Recker
Infield: Allen/Ka'aihue/Pennington/Sogard/Weeks/Donaldson
Outfield: Cespedes/Cowgill/Crisp/Gomes/Reddick/Smith
Off we go! Season starts in Oakland, Friday at 7:05PM. I'll see you right here.
