His Bad: Blackley Implodes, Giants Beat Athletics 13-9

When you have an outing like Travis Blackley did, I think the appropriate hashtag might have to be “#cantwin.”  But that’s okay, get as many of the outings like this out of his system while they’re in the Valley of the Sun.  It was ugly, there’s no way to sidestep that fact.  Blackley recorded just 1 out on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Joaquin Arias among the singles, double, triple, walks, and home run that served as the knockout punch for the Aussie lefty.  All told, Blackley’s horrific line was: 0.1 innings, 5 hits, 7 ER, 2 walks, to drop a nice little 47.25 ERA on his Cactus League resume through 2 appearances.  Not how Blackley envisioned facing his former mates, but assuredly he’ll be able to shrug it off and bounce back.

September 22, 2012; Bronx, NY, USA; Oakland Athletics pitcher

(54) reacts after giving up a run during the first inning of a game against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

It wasn’t all bad though, despite the general sloppiness of this game.  Jarrod Parker started the game and looked very sharp in his 2 innings of work, he allowed just 1 base hit and struck out 2 (both looking) in the process.  Jerry Blevins relieved Parker, and his debut didn’t go quite as smoothly as he’d hoped thanks to some hits and some shoddy defense by Jemile Weeks behind him.  Blevins surrendered 3 runs (2 earned) in just 0.2 innings of work, he allowed 4 hits and struck out one.  Kyler Newby cleaned up Blevins’ mess, retiring the one batter he faced.  Both Ryan Cook and Sean Doolittle had uneventful innings, allowing a hit and a walk between the two without a strikeout.  Brian Gordon helped clean up Blackley’s catastrophe in the 6th inning, and threw 1.2 innings altogether while not allowing a baserunner.  Garrett Olson gave up 2 runs in his inning, and James Simmons allowed his first run in his third appearance on a home run given up to Angel Villalona this Spring.

The other positive of the game was that the A’s offense was at least able to make this something of a ballgame.  The A’s tallied 14 hits total, getting 2 each from Chris Young, Andy Parrino, and Michael Choice.  Jemile Weeks, Eric Sogard, Adam Rosales, Derek Norris, Seth Smith, Michael Taylor, Daric Barton, and Shane Peterson each joined the hit parade  as well.  Conspicuous by his absence from the hit column was Yoenis Cespedes who has yet to get a knock so far this Spring, no doubt that his lack of production is extremely troubling and the A’s prospects for the 2013 season as a whole are starting to look rather grim.  If you haven’t already figured out, I’m joking, and I’m not the slightest bit worried because it’s Spring Training.

The A’s will forget about this one, and hopefully give good ol’ Travis Blackley a pat on the back in the process.  Tommy Milone will make his debut tomorrow as the A’s play host to the Colorado Rockies at Phoenix Muni.  The A’s are just 2-5 in their first week of the extended Cactus League schedule and will look to get in the win column against Jhoulys Chacin at 12:05PM PT.