The Oakland A's are coming off a game which should have gave them some momentum to at least get the A's in a tie for third place with the Seattle Mariners, but again their effort was again not where it should be especially for a professional baseball team.
The only offense the A's could muster against Erik Bedard was a solo homerun by Bobby Crosby.
Yet, even though the A's had no offense going, the Mariners couldn't capitalize twice with runners in scoring position in the first or the fifth innings. A's starter Trevor Cahill was able to get out of jams without giving up any runs.
This game was almost reminiscent of Brett Anderson's performance against the Mariners where he repeatedly got out of threats.
Unfortunately unlike Anderson, Cahill was not able to get a victory and instead took the loss. His problem came after he got the first out of the sixth inning. Adam Kennedy committed an error allowing Griffey to get on base.
That's when Russell Branyan came to the plate. Instead of doing what a good manager would do and put in a reliever to get the dangerous Branyan out, Geren decided to let Cahill pitch to him and it was a mistake because Branyan launched a two run homer.
With the way Bedard was pitching, that's all the offense the Mariners needed from that point on.
The Mariners did add an insurance run off of Brad Ziegler in the seventh and added two more runs off of Russ Springer in the ninth inning.
It begs the question that with the Mariners bullpen being shaky, why would Geren put in Springer in the first place? When Springer comes into a ball game, it's like waving the proverbial white flag saying, "we give up, you guys are going to get the win." A score of 4-1 is easier to have confidence to at least start a rally than a score of 6-1.
The good news was that the A's still remained 7.5 games behind the Texas Rangers, five games back from the Angels, and after taking the series from the Mariners two games out.
- Login to post comments