The Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox are finished with their two game series over in Japan and this time it was the Athletics that came out on top with a 5-1 victory.  It was the third time that two american teams split a two game series over in Japan.

The A’s got off to a good start when Chris Denorfia singled in Bobby Crosby in the second inning.  Emil Brown came up big with a three run homerun off of Jon Lester in the third inning.  That gave the Athletics a 4-0 lead after three innings but they weren’t done scoring as Jeff Fiorentino singled in Kurt Suzuki in the 8th inning.

Rich Harden was the winning pitcher for the Athletics.  He pitched a great ballgame and went six innings while only allowing one run.  That run came in the sixth inning when Manny Ramirez went deep for his first homerun of the season.  Other then that, the A’s pitching staff did a wonderful job against the potent Red Sox lineup.

The A’s will now head back to the United States and play three exhibition games against the San Francisco Giants.

If the rest of the season is as exciting as the first game, we are going to be in for one hell of a ride lol.  Even though the A’s lost to the Boston Red Sox 6-5 in 10 innings there were some good things from the game.

Getting off to the fast start was nice to see.  The A’s rattled Red Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka in the first inning when Mark Ellis went deep for his first homerun of the season, and the A’s scored another run to take a quick 2-0 lead when Bobby Crosby grounded out to the pitcher but but scored Daric Barton.

Jack Hannahan hit a two run homer in the 6th inning that made the score 4-3 A’s, but it wasn’t enough as Huston Street would later blow the save in the 9th inning when Brandon Moss hit a homerun and then take the loss in the 10th inning after giving up a game winning double to Manny Ramirez.

The two teams will play one more game before coming back to the United States.

The Athletics also announced that Eric Chavez and Chad Gaudin have been placed on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to March 19th.

Pitchers Gio Gonzalez and Greg Smith have been optioned to Triple-A Sacramento by the Oakland Atheltics.  Both young pitchers are highly regarded in the Athletics minor leagues, and both will be on the big league roster this year or next year I’m pretty sure.

Instead of having them sit on the bench or out in the bullpen, they will be getting their full innings down in the minor leagues.  Look for one of the two to be called up the first time the Athletics call up a starting pitcher.  My guess would be on Smith over Gonzalez right now.

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Aaron Cunningham who was trying to earn a spot on the big league roster with the Oakland Athletics will start the season in the disabled list as he broke his left wrist while sliding into a base.  Another reason why head first slides 90% suck…

It was going to be hard for Cunningham to make the big league roster this year and he will more then likely come of the disabled list and start playing in double a ball.

In some other Athletic news from Spring Training, it doesn’t look like Eric Chavez will be making his 10th straight opening day start for the Athletics.  Chavez still isn’t running and isn’t responding too well after receiving an epidural last week.

The Oakland Athletics reassigned Jay Marshall, Arnold Leon, Ryan Wing and Brad Ziegler to minor league camp on Thursday.  The Athletics also optioned Landon Powell to Triple-A Sacramento.

This was just the first moves of many as the Atheltics start to cut players from the big league spring training camp.  They will have some harder decisions in the next few weeks, including the first basemen and dh positions.

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