The Oakland Athletics are slowly but surely gaining their momentum back. They came into their home stand with a tough series against a tough Detroit Tigers team. So far, they have managed to guarantee at least a split of this series.
In their first game against the Tigers, they managed to break out offensively with a 10-0 win. That was a very encouraging sign after watching them lose 4 straight. They had 5 homeruns, including a grand slam from Derek Norris. Overall, that game was a huge boost to a struggling Athletics team.
The second game was also a good offensive game for the Athletics, but unfortunately the Tigers had a better one. They lost that game 6-5. The Athletics were able to put up a good amount of runs, but the pitching killed it for this game. Fernando Abad and Luke Gregerson combined to blow yet another game. It’s been the typical scenario where Abad allows some base runners, and instead of letting him finish, Bob Melvin brings in Luke Gregerson, who leads the league in most inherited runners scored.
I still wonder why Melvin makes that exact same decision, when it has the same results every time. Luke Gregerson is a good pitcher, but only when pitching from behind. He has had 8 save opportunities, and has only been able to convert 3. That lead to him no longer being a part of the closer by committee group. He comes into games with the lead, and he usually allows runs to score. He has some outstanding outings, but is very inconsistent and isn’t all that reliable if the game is a close one.
Either way, the 2nd game of the series was yet another positive sign for the offense.
In tonight’s game, the pitching rebounded nicely, allowing only 1 run to a very talented and stacked lineup. The offense was not looking so well. They hardly collected any hits until the 9th inning. They did, however, make their hits in the 9th count. Coco Crisp hit a double and was moved up to 3rd on a single by John Jaso. Josh Donaldson came up to the plate with the game on the line. All he need to do was hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game. Josh Donaldson decided he wanted to do more than that. He decided that he was going to hit that ball outta there.
The Athletics won the game with a walk-off homerun by Josh Donaldson, kind of like last years game in April where he did the same thing.
Right now, Josh Donaldson leads the voting for 3rd basemen for the All-Star game. He needs to keep performing well, otherwise he may fall out of the running. He made sure to let everyone know that he is an All-Star player, by winning an important game for his team in the 9th inning. Josh Donaldson is an All-Star, and don’t you forget it.