Just a strange, compelling game.
Jays 7, Athletics 6.
A win is a win is a win, right? Oakland races out to a 5-0 lead off Jo-Jo Reyes and gives it all back with shoddy fielding. Jason Frasor surrenders a go-ahead homer in the 10th, but Yunel Escobar gets him off the hook with a
two-run walkoff shot. I want my team to be convinced they should expect
to win. Winning funhouse games like this can only help.
I didn’t have a sense of how Reyes looked on the mound. I was there, but down the first-base side, which is mostly worthless for watching pitchers. The Dome’s radar had Reyes throwing 93, for whatever that’s worth. It seemed like the A’s consciously worked the count in the first three innings, managed to score the first run, and then started bashing Reyes around with singles and doubles when he started to really tire.
It was a wild rollercoaster game, with a lot of unusual and/or interesting little events along the way. Things I'd never seen before, or windows into John Farrell's brain. Things like:
Top 1: Oakland starts Andy LaRoche at shortstop, I guess for his power against the lefty Reyes, in the 9-hole. According to the Baseball Cube, LaRoche had played zero innings at short prior to the 2011 season. He plays there through the top of the sixth, which he leads off with a strikeout. Cliff Pennington replaces him in the bottom half.
Bottom 2: Juan Rivera draws his fourth walk of the year, off Brandon McCarthy, against only one strikeout. Let’s hear it for old guy skills.
Top 3: Scoreless, one out, LaRoche on third, Daric Barton at bat. The at-bat proceeds normally and ends up in a 3-2 count. As Reyes delivers the payoff pitch, all four of the Jays’ infielders charge in from normal depth, anticipating some kind of bunt. Barton swings and misses, strike three. I had never seen anything like this before. The book on Barton is that it’s only worth selling out to prevent the squeeze play in a 3-2 count? Just weird.
Bottom 4: Oakland up 5-0, one out, Escobar on first, Lind at bat. He tags a sharp liner that lands right on the first-base bag and pops straight up into right field, where it’s fielded by Mark Ellis. Score it: “Adam Lind singles on a ground ball to the second baseman.” I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I assume the base is considered part of the ground... right?
Top 6: Carlos Villanueva gets through 2.2 no-hit innings to keep the Jays alive. He does not throw fastballs. Tim Langton butchers his name and sounds condescending, uninterested and oddly timid doing it. The sun sets in the west.
Bottom 6: Oakland up 5-1, none out, Rajai Davis on second after doubling to left past the bunt-prevention defense. Davis breaks for third and gets himself picked off, again, but beats the throw back to second, again. McCarthy spends the rest of the inning worrying about the possibility of a steal of third, regardless of who's on second. Escobar hits a soft grounder to the left side, charged by the third baseman Kouzmanoff. Davis breaks slowly for third, screening Kouzmanoff, with nobody home to cover third. Result: E5, which was changed to an infield hit after Kouz made another error in the same inning.
Next batter is Adam Lind, who pops up into foul territory down the left side, caught on the run by Kouzmanoff. Davis breaks for home and scores easily. Kouzmanoff tries a futile desperation heave to the plate, but slips and spikes the ball straight into the ground. Escobar alertly swipes second. Next batter is Hill. He singles. 5-3. Jays go on to tie the game in the inning, 5-5.
Top 7: Tied 5-5. The Jays have had David Purcey up throughout the bottom of the 6th, probably anticipating a low-leverage long relief situation. The four-spot in the sixth changes all that. Due up for Oakland: Jackson, Josh Willingham and Ellis – three righties. So John Farrell calls on... David Purcey. Who kills them off in order, including two strikeouts.
Top 8: Tied 5-5. Due up: lefty David DeJesus, then righties Kurt Suzuki and Kouzmanoff. Does Purcey stay in to wipe out DeJesus? Nope. In comes sinker-slider guy Shawn Camp, who (predictably?) gives up a sharp groundball single to DeJesus. He then (predictably) K’s Suzuki on a vicious slider. With one out, Kouzmanoff runs the count to 2-1. Camp, sensing a hit-and-run, sets and stays frozen for an eternity. He’s absolutely right, and when he finally delivers, Jackson gets such an awful break that he decides to stay put. Kouzmanoff rolls over the sinker. 6-4-3. Beautiful.
Bottom 8: Tied 5-5, McCarthy inexplicably still in the game to face 3-4-5. I mean, his pitch count was south of 90 and closer Brian Fuentes was unavailable due to blisters, but this just screamed bad idea. Lind leads off. McCarthy throws him a first-pitch curveball in the zone, in hopes that Lind will stupidly put a two-strike swing on it and roll over. Hey, it’s worked before... but not this time. Lind crushes it into the second deck, foul. Strike one, but a good sign, right? Lind singles. Hill lines out sharply to Kouzmanoff for the second time in the game, and McCarthy survives.
Top 9: Jon Rauch gives up a couple of warning-track fly balls, and Davis ends the inning with a spectacular catch to rob Jackson of a go-ahead double. Rauch has been hit very hard in his two showings.
Bottom 9: Tied 5-5, two out, nobody on, lefty Jerry Blevins pitching. Jose Molina bats for himself.
Top 10: Willingham leads off with a no-doubter to left on a 2-2 slider from Frasor. 6-5, Oakland.
Bottom 10: Davis fights out of an 0-2 hole for a leadoff single against Grant Balfour. Balfour tries to quickly sneak a first-pitch fastball by Escobar. Escobar is ready and drills it the other way into Oakland’s bullpen for a two-run, walk-off homer. Jays win! 11,077 happy people leave the Dome. It'll be pretty tragic if Sunday's game outdraws this whole series.
So a lot of odd stuff happened, and we have a bit of evidence on how Farrell’s going to manage the bullpen, at least in April. And we’ve seen Jo-Jo Reyes in action. What did you think?
Tonight, round two. Dallas Braden and his eephus-screwball-changeup take on Jesse Litsch and his cutter. The Jays will be without Jose Bautista for the rest of the series (congrats, Jose!) Oakland -110, first pitch 7:07.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20110322235909765