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The A's bid for their 50th win of the season to join the Pirates, Cardinals and Red Sox fell short tonight as their offense was simply out-matched by Matt Garza, and the Cubs made first and third inning runs stand up. Brandon Moss' 15th homerun on the season was the lone blemish on Garza's eight innings; the A's four hits and three walks did no further damage. Logically I know that the A's win more than they lose, but I still hate losing. That being said, the A's were not going to win this game, and they should focus on winning the series tomorrow.
Move along folks, there's really nothing to see here. You hate to see a pitching outing like this one wasted; close enough to still wonder "what if". What if Reddick catches the homerun as he nearly did? What if we just could have scored the elusive second run to tie the game? And then you remember that the Cubs had 12 hits to the A's 4, and you wonder how they scored three total runs.
A single, a wild pitch and another single scored the first run for the Cubs in the first inning; too early to tell that the game would be a pitcher's duel. The A's put a runner on in the first and second innings, but did nothing with them. The Cubs added on with a solo homerun in the third, that just ticked off the outside of Reddick's glove, which was well over the fence in a perfectly-timed leap. The A's went down 1, 2, 3 in the third, and would have in the fourth as well, but Moss interrupted Garza with a homerun that would score the A's only run of the night. The A's would put one on in the fifth, and two on in the sixth, but couldn't get the RBI hit.
Meanwhile, Colon kept the Cubs off the board, even dodging a one-out triple in the seventh, and interestingly enough, he struck out no one in the outing. His replacement, Sean Doolittle, allowed back-to-back doubles in the eighth for the ever-important insurance run (helped quite a bit in the field by Yoenis Cespedes, who also popped up just about every pitch at the plate tonight). The A's would bring the tying run to the plate with two outs in the ninth, but Josh Reddick struck out instead of hitting the game-tying homerun. The nerve.
No time to feel sad. It's Happy Birthday America tomorrow, and the A's try to win the series at 1:00PM. From Twitter:
#Athletics Drumbeat: Dan Straily starts tomorrow; his thoughts on change of plans; and more on Manny and #Rangers: http://t.co/Y1Qg053j4M
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) July 4, 2013
Dan Straily will start tomorrow, and it's rumored that Parker will start on Saturday. We'll have all the action right here.
Good night and have a safe and fun holiday!
