The A's finished a six game week with a 3-3 record.
That was a surprising twist, considering how the A's offense struggled against the Mariners on Thursday and Friday.
The first game of the two game series with the Red Sox began with a dominating eight innings from Brett Anderson. He allowed no runs, four hits and recorded eight strikeouts in eight innings. The A's offense struggled until the bottom of the eighth where they scored four times off of the Red Sox bullpen en route to a 5-0 victory.
Gio Gonzalez struggled in the second matchup with the Sox, as he was touched up for four runs in sixth innings. Coco Crisp led off the game with a home run but the A's were unable to put any additional runs on the board in support of Gonzalez.
The A's rallied in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings but were only able to push across two additional runs. The Red Sox won the game 5-3.
The A's headed to the Northwest to take on the Mariners. The first game saw Brandon McCarthy pitch 6.2 innings, his only blemish, an Adam Kennedy home run.
Unfortunately, the A's could not score against Felix Hernandez.
The same was true the following night, as Michael Pineda held the A's scoreless for sixth innings and the bullpen shut the A's down the rest of the way. Tyson Ross struggled through his start, and yielded three runs, four hits and four walks in 4.1 innings. The Mariners took the second game 4-0.
The A's popped out of their offensive funk on Saturday night's game as Cliff Pennington and Kevin Kouzmanoff combined to drive in six runs, each with a home run to their credit.
Trevor Cahill pitched an effective six innings and the A's went on to win 9-1.
Brett Anderson looked on his way to a tough luck no decision in the series finale, but Josh Willingham hit a two run double and the A's bullpen pitched two shutout innings to pull off a 5-2 win and split in the series. Anderson fought his way through seven innings and allowed only two runs, one earned with six strikeouts.
Offense
The word inconsistent gains new meaning when it comes to the A's. The A's scored eight runs in their two games with the Red Sox, none in the first two with the Mariners, and 14 in the final two in Seattle.
On the plus side, Coco Crisp is starting to heat up, as he batted 6 - 10 with three extra base hits in the last two games with the Mariners.
Defense
Over the past six games the defense has finally begun to tighten up. The A's limited themselves to only three errors and one unearned run. Kouzmanoff committed the most costly error, overthrowing Daric Barton at first and giving the Mariners a potential game tying rally in the Sunday Game.
Anderson was able to overcome, so overall the defense could not be faulted.
Starting Pitching
The A's had a down week in terms of starting pitching. But that's relative to the A's. Anderson was tops with two starts totaling 15 innings, and two wins while only allowing one earned run.
Cahill and McCarthy each turned in quality starts over six innings. Gonzalez struggled as did Ross but overall the starters pitched 38 innings and allowed merely 10 earned runs.
Relief Pitching
For once, the A's relievers did not play a factor in the games. Brian Fuentes turned in the only save in the Sunday game versus the Mariners.
A's relievers pitched well with the exception Jerry Blevins who allowed a pair of inherited runners to score after taking over for Tyson Ross on Friday.
Management
For once, I cannot find fault with Bob Geren's management of the team over the past six games. He made the right moves to make sure that games did not get out of hand. He used the relievers when necessary and his decisions on using pinch hitters were successful.
It's lucky the A's have such dominating starters so fewer managerial choices are necessary.
The A's manged to split both series and finished the week with a 3-3 record. If the A's offense could have gained consistency the A's could have won four or even five in the week.
Consistency in the offense and starting pitching is again, but still very crucial to the A's success in the 2011 season.
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