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In case you missed the news of the night:
Manny Ramirez has requested his outright release from the #Athletics and the team has granted his request.
— Oakland Athletics (@Athletics) June 16, 2012
The A's offense appeared not to notice. For the second time in three games, the A's offense scored in the double-digits; and have scored eight or more in five of their last seven games. The A's also won their fourth game in a row; coincidentally, the same number homeruns that Moss has in those games. Tonight's broadcast also featured Scott Hatteberg and introduced Addison "Addy" Russell to A's fans.
The A's offense is absolutely on fire. Racking up 10 more runs tonight on just one homerun, the offense more than made up for anything Travis Blackley could have done. What he did was pitch six innings, allowing two runs on five hits. The interesting part of his line is that he threw 104 pitches, but only 61 were strikes. That's not a great ratio by any stretch, but he did battle tonight, and earned the win. Evan Scribner got the save, by virtue of pitching 3 innings in relief.
The game started out on a shaky note; Blackley allowed an early first-inning run. But the A's answered back in dramatic fashion; Coco Crisp led off the game with a walk, and stole second base (he never gets thrown out). Jemile Weeks walked, and Reddick tripled both of the runners in to give the A's a 2-1 lead. Brandon Inge would single Reddick in, bringing up Brandon Moss. Ho hum; all he did was hit another homerun to complete the 5-spot, and give the A's a lead they would never come close to relinquishing.
Blackley would give up another run in the second, but the Padres wouldn't score again. The A's would add two more in the fourth on a Collin Cowgill single (he went 2-3), a Pennington double (he went 3-3) and a Crisp single (he went 2-4). The A's would add two more in the sixth on singles by Suzuki, Cowgill, Pennington and a Padres' error mixed in. Just for fun, the A's added their 10th run on a Cowgill walk, a Pennington single, a Crisp single and a Weeks' sac fly in the eighth.
And just like that, we record another A's win. We do it again tomorrow; 1:05 start. I'll be your host for what will hopefully be the A's fifth win in a row.
