The Oakland A's came off home series against Texas where the A's with runners in scoring position managed to go for 0-30, but somehow were still able to take win two games of the three game series.
At that point it looked like it was a turning point of the season for the A's because they gained ground on the Texas Rangers in the American League West division race and had a chance with the Rangers having an off-day to even gain further ground.
That didn't happen for the A's instead the A's lost two games to the Seattle Mariners the worst team in the division and one of the worst teams in baseball. It was understandable the A's wouldn't sweep considering the team was facing Felix Hernandez in the second game of the series.
Regardless of that series there's no better example of just how pathetic the A's offense is then the first game of the series against the Minnesota Twins. The A's had plenty of opportunities to score and yet only managed to score four runs.
In fact the game started off well for the A's with Coco Crisp leading the game off with a single then stealing second on the first pitch to Daric Barton. Kurt Suzuki who's been struggling mightily at the plate came up.
His main purpose at the plate should have been getting the runners over to second and third. That means bunting because at that moment Suzuki just hadn't been producing at the plate.
Instead Suzuki wound up striking out, Jack Cust grounded out to first allowing the runners to get to second and third with two outs. Kevin Kouzmanoff grounded out to Alexei Casilla who made a nice play and threw in time to get Kouzmanoff.
Two of the runs came in the top of the third inning when Cliff Pennington doubled, Crisp struckout but when Barton came up he stole third because Carl Pavano was not paying attention to him. Barton then lined a triple into the right field gap to score Pennington.
Kurt Suzuki wasn't able to bring in Pennington and Jack Cust went to the opposite field bringing in Barton to tie the game up at the time at 2-2.
For the rest of the game the A's had plenty of runners on base but were not able to cash in. The top of the seventh and eighth innings were the best chances for the A's to do some damage.
In the seventh inning Crisp singled, Barton lined out to center, Suzuki singled to left field and was able to get to second while Crisp to third because Delmon Young was not able to catch the ball on a dive.
Ron Mahay came in and relieved Pavano. Cust was pressing a little bit because he got the count to 3-1 and swung at ball four and ended up watching strike three. Kouzmanoff was robbed of a two run single by Casilla on a nice diving catch at shortstop.
During the top of the eighth Mark Ellis hit an infield single, Rajai Davis hit a single, Chris Carter bounced into a fielders choice leaving runners on first and third with Davis being forced out at second. Cliff Pennington worked a walk.
This meant that Crisp was up with the bases loaded and the infield playing back. The Twins in the game had already used the benefit of a suicide squeeze don't understand why the A's were going to utilize Crisp's speed.
Instead of at least getting a run in that situation, Crisp hits into the inning ending double play.
In the top of the ninth inning the A's managed to score a fluke run. Barton lined a ball to Denard Span for the first out of the inning, Kurt Suzuki doubled, Cust popped out to shortstop, Kouzmanoff hit a sharp grounder to Casilla who tried to make a backhanded play, but wasn't able to do it which was scored an error and Suzuki also scored.
Ellis hit a single leaving runners on first and second. Davis was up again and instead of taking any pitches he went after the first pitch and hit a flyball to left center to end the game.
In all the A's had 14 hits to the Twins five, but in the scoring department the Twins etched out four runs on those five hits and the A's only managed three runs on those 14 hits.
Just further proof that in the offseason the A's need drastic changes at the coaching level starting with Jim Skaalen and moving to Geren.
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