The Oakland Athletics were absolutely hammered on Wednesday afternoon by the Texas Rangers. The Rangers jumped all over the A’s and went on to win the ballgame by the score of 14-4. The A’s dropped two out of three games on the road to the Rangers in the series.

All four A’s pitchers that got into the game were charged with atleast one run as it wasn’t a good day to be a pitcher on the Athletics staff. Starting pitcher Dana Eveland was charged with eight hits and seven runs in just five innings to take the loss. Eveland is now 9-9 on the year.

Relief pitcher Santiago Casilla gave up four runs, while Jeff Gray gave up two runs. Dan Meyer gave up one more run and three hits over his two innings of action. Just a terrible outing by all the A’s pitchers.

Chris Denorfia and Jack Cust both hit solo home runs to finish with one rbi each for the A’s. The A’s also got single rbi’s from Cliff Pennington and Rob Bowen. That was all the offense could muster against the Rangers.

The A’s will now be off on Thursday before beginning their final series of the year against the Seattle Mariners.

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On Monday night the Oakland Athletics and Texas Rangers played 11 innings with the A’s coming out on top with a 4-3 victory. The A’s had blown the save in the bottom of the ninth inning, so it was nice to see them battle back and still get the victory.

Brad Ziegler blew the save when he gave up a solo home run to Hank Blalock in the bottom of the ninth inning. Alan Embree ended up being the winning pitcher in the game after throwing the tenth inning. Santiago Casilla got his second save of the year when he finished off the Rangers in the eleventh inning. Greg Smith had started the game for the A’s but only lasted five innings as he gave up six hits and two runs.

At the plate for the A’s, Travis Buck had the game winning hit when he singled and Cliff Pennington scored. Pennington also had a rbi single of his own while Jack Cust had a rbi double. There wasn’t much offense for the A’s but on Monday night it was enough to get the victory.

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The Oakland Athletics rallied in the bottom of the ninth inning but came up just short against the Los Angeles Angels. The A’s scored four times in the ninth inning to avoid the shut out as they ended up losing by the score of 6-4. The A’s came up just short of sweeping the league leading Angels in the series as they had won the first two games of the series.

Jack Cust, Aaron Cunningham, Kurt Suzuki, and Carlos Gonzalez all had one rbi each for the A’s at the plate. It’s too bad that it took the A’s until the ninth inning to get the offense kicking and score some runs.

The starting pitcher for the A’s was Josh Outman who took the loss. Outman gave up six hits and three runs in the game in 4 1/3 innings of action. Keith Foulke was terrible as he gave up three solo home runs in a row. Kendry Morales, Mike Napoli, and Brandon Wood went back-to-back-to-back off of Foulke in the seventh inning.

The A’s will now have a weekend series against the Seattle Mariners who are really struggling at this point in the season. A’s blog

The Oakland Athletics finished up a three game series with the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday afternoon with a 5-2 victory. The A’s took two out of three games in the series and they improved their season record to 67-78.

There wasn’t a ton of offense for the A’s but they did push across two runs in the first inning to jump out to a 2-0 lead and then added three more in the fourth inning. In the first, Ryan Sweeney and Jack Cust both hit solo home runs off of Armando Galarraga. In the fourth inning, Eric Patterson started the scoring off with a rbi single and then Aaron Cunningham knocked in two runs with a two run single.

Sean Gallagher got the start on the mound but only lasted four innings as he had control issues. Gallagher gave up six walks while striking out six others. He did not allow a run but didn’t pitch five innings to qualify for the win. Huston Street was the winning pitcher for the A’s and is now 6-5. Brad Ziegler pitched the ninth inning and now has eight saves for the year.

The A’s will kick off a four game series with the Texas Rangers on Thursday. Check back for our update about that game late Thursday night or Friday morning! A’s Blog

The Oakland Athletics bats faltered on Wednesday afternoon as they lost to the Minnesota Twins by the score of 3-1. The A’s pushed across one run in the first inning but then were held scoreless the final eight innings of the game. The A’s ended up losing the three game series one game to two and are now 57-69 on the season.

Dallas Braden took the loss after being charged with six hits and three runs over 5 2/3 innings. Braden gave up single runs in the first, third, and sixth innings. Huston Street and Alan Embree both seen action out of the bullpen and held the Twins to the three runs that Braden had given up.

The one run for the A’s that came in the first inning happened when Jack Cust reached on an infield single and Mark Ellis scored. That was all the offense for the A’s as they were limited to just five hits in the game.

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The Oakland A’s jumped out to a 1-0 lead after the first inning and then held onto beat the Minnesota Twins 3-2 as the two teams opened up a three game series in Minnesota. The A’s got a big boost from Kirk Saarloos who was called up from Triple-A and pitched out of the bullpen.

Saarloos came into the game after Justin Duchscherer left the game in the third inning with hip pain. Saarloos would go onto throw 3 2/3 innings while onling giving up one hit. He pitched very good and picked up the win which was his first at the major league level this year.

The Twins tried to make things interesting late in the game as they scored one run off of Huston Street and then another one off of Brad Ziegler. Ziegler was able to calm down however and pick up his third save of the season.

Mark Ellis got the A’s on the scoreboard in the first inning with a solo home run. The A’s would then score two more runs in the fourth inning on a Kurt Suzuki single that scored Frank Thomas and Jack Cust. There wasn’t much offense but it was enough to get the victory over the Twins.

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The Oakland Athletics lost to the Kansas City Royals for the second straight game on Tuesday night.  The A’s just couldn’t get much going at the plate against Gil Meche and they will now have to win on Wednesday to avoid the embarrasing three game sweep at home against the Royals.

Athletics starting pitcher Greg Smtih served up two home runs including a three run shot in the seventh inning to John Buck as he took the loss.  Smith is now a terrible 5-10 on the year.  He did only give four hits in his seven innings of action, but two of those hits were home runs and he just can’t do that if he wants to keep the team in a position to win.

Mark Ellis got the A’s scoring started with a rbi single in the fourth inning.  Jack Cust scored on the Ellis single.  In the seventh inning, Bobby Crosby grounded out to the pitcher and Ellis scored the second and final run for the A’s.  The Athletics struckout 10 times and left 11 runners on base in the game.

Hopefully the team can atleast win on Wednesday to avoid the sweep.  Oakland Athletics Baseball

The Oakland Athletics ran into a tough Tampa Bay Rays team on Monday night as they were shutout 4-0.  This was not the way the Athletics wanted to start there weekday series with the Rays.  I suppose this is why the Rays are at the top of the East Division and playing well.

Dana Eveland took the loss and is now 7-7 after throwing five innings and givng up seven hits and four runs.  It wasn’t a quality start for Eveland as he was hoping for.  He just didn’t have his pitches working for him on Monday night.  Eveland also gave up two solo home runs in the game.

Andrew Brown threw two scoreless innings before Santiago Casilla threw a scoreless inning in the 8th inning.

Ryan Sweeney and Jack Cust both had one hit each and that was all the A’s could get at the plate.  Not a whole lot to blog about as the A’s were shutdown by Scott Kazmir and the Rays.

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The Oakland A’s were on the verge of losing to the Seattle Mariners until the bottom of the ninth inning when they hit two solo home runs to take the game into extra innings.  In the 11th inning, another solo home run won it for the A’s as the they defeated the Mariners 3-2.

Jack Cust and Kurt Suzuki both went deep in the 9th inning that tied the game up at 2-2.  Emil Brown hit his 7th home run of the year in the 11th inning to win it for the Athletics in walk off fashion.  It was a huge come from behind win the the A’s who are now 50-42.

Huston Street recorded the win and is now 2-2 on the year.  Street was the sixth A’s pitcher to see action in the game.  Starting pitcher Greg Smith didn’t allow a run over six innings but did give up four hits.  Santiago Casilla and Alan Embree were the two pitchers that gave up one run each.

The A’s will now start a three game weekend series with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday.  The series is very big because the Athletics are 4.5 games behind the Angels in the divisional standings.

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The Oakland Athletics lost to the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday night by the score of 6-4.  The A’s gave up five runs in the fifth inning and didn’t have an answer as they were held scoreless after the fifth inning.

Joe Blanton continues to struggle and is now 5-12 after taking the loss.  Blanton tossed six innings as he gave up nine hits and six runs.  Blanton now has a 4.96 era and is not stepping up his game when it is his turn.  I just have to think where the A’s would be if Blanton was throwing the ball like he is capable of.

Jerry Blevins, Santiago Casilla. and Andrew Brown all threw one inning each out of the bullpen and did not allow any runs to score.  Great job by the three relief pitchers who atleast gave the offense the chance to come back in the late innings.

The A’s offense really didn’t do to much in the game.  Jack Cust had a solo home run in the 2nd inning to get the A’s scoring started and then Donnie Murphy had a three run triple that cleared the bases in the fourth inning.  That was all the scoring that the A’s would do in the game as they were held scoreless for the last five innings of the game.

The A’s and Mariners will now play an afternoon game.  With a win Thursday, the A’s will have won the series three games to one so lets all hope they can pull out a victory!  Athletics Blog