Hey, the A’s won again! And it was a drama-free win! I like it when the the A’s win and when they win easily. It was also nice to see them hand Jason Vargas a loss, which they never seem to do.
It was the A’s who struck first again, scoring their first run in the third after Andy Parrino doubled and Jed Lowrie drove him in with a single. Their biggest inning was in the sixth, when they scored four runs, sealing the fate of the series. With one out Derek Norris doubled, Josh Donaldson followed with a home run and put the A’s up 3-1. Seth Smith doubled and Jason Vargas intentionally walked Coco Crisp to get to Chris Young. Vargas was then replaced by Kevin Jepsen, who coughed up a double to Young, which scored Crisp.
The offense was nice, but AJ Griffin was the true hero of the night. Griffin lasted eight innings tonight, the longest for any of the starting pitchers this season, and only allowed one run. The only trouble he really had was in the fourth inning, when he allowed back-to-back singles with one out to both Josh Hamilton and Mark Trumbo. Howard Kendrick followed up with a double, scoring Hamilton and with runners on second and third with only one out, he struck out Chris Iannetta and got Peter Bourjos to ground out to third base to end the inning.
After the first two nights of the series, this game was pretty uneventful for the team, besides the monster home run Yoenis Cespedes hit to center field to lead off the seventh inning. The A’s scored their final two runs in the ninth of off a two-run double by Seth Smith. Evan Scribner finished the game, retiring all three batters he faced on two fly outs and a pop up to to second base.
Lines of the Day:
- The team really needed AJ Griffin to go deep into this game and that’s what he did, he pitched eight innings, allowed five hits, one run, walked one and stuck out two.
- Seth Smith had another big night for the team, going 4-5 with two more doubles and an RBI.
- Josh Donaldson, who has struggled a bit at the plate this year, had a 2-4 night with a walk, he also hit his first home run of the season and drove in two runs.
Ugly Lines of the Day:
- It was a clean win and every player collected at least one hit tonight, so I will spare the players an “ugly line” tonight.
