Oakland Athletics: 2015 Season Almanac

Game 12 – Saturday, April 18, 2015 @ 1:00 pm

Game Attendance: Away Game
Season Attendance: 173,367
Lowest Attendance: 15,025 (Game 2)
Game Time: 2:34
Season Time: 33:54

Win Record: 6-6
Win Record vs Royals: 1-1
Streak: W1
AL West Standing: 1st
Magic Number: 151

Winning Pitcher: Jesse Hahn (1-1)
Losing Pitcher: Yordano Ventura (2-1)
Pitchers/Pitch Count: Hahn/65, Chavez/57
Total Pitches per game: 122
Total Pitches per season: 1623

Game Home Runs: 1
Season Home Runs: 10
Game Runs: 5
Season Runs: 65
Runs Rank: Second
Run Differential: 26
Differential Rank: 1st (Tied with Royals)

Game RBI Leader: Reddick (3)
Season RBI Leader: Vogt (9)
Most RBI’s in Single Game: 4 (Game 3 & 5)

Game RISP: 2 for 5
Game LOB: 5
Season RISP: 40 for 120
Season LOB: 81

Game Batting Average: .235
Lineup Batting Average: .284

Total Players Used in Game: 11
Most Players Used in Game: 19 (Game 6)

Challenged Plays: 1
Total Challenged Plays: 6
Total Overturned Plays: 3
Games Won in Extra Innings: 0
Total Games Played in Extra Innings: 2 (6,7)

Special Notes:

Apr 18, 2015; Kansas City, MO, USA; Oakland Athletics third basemen Brett Lawrie (15) gets hit with a pitch from Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura (not pictured) during the fourth inning at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

The Oakland Athletics have now won five shut out games and each starter in the rotation has started one of those shut outs. Jesse Hahn was on point on Saturday afternoon throwing 5.1 innings of three hit, no run baseball, pitching out of an error induced jam and keeping his pitch count very economical. In fact, the only reason he was pulled from the game when he was was due to a blister on the middle finger of his throwing hand.

Jesse Chavez held the shut out and earned the team’s first save of the season for pitching 3.2 innings of nearly flawless relief.

Josh Reddick hit his first home run of the season when he drove in three in the top of the fifth. Immediately following the blast, which brought the score to 5-0, Brett Lawrie faced the music and took a Ventura fast ball to the elbow and calmly took his base. As was to be expected, Ventura was ejected and benches were cleared (Reddick hadn’t even taken his batting gear off yet) but there was very little excitement on the field as Lawrie refused to elevate the situation.

Twitter, on the other hand, went bananas over the whole thing and A’s fans, and especially beat writers, have been taking on arguments and rude tweets all weekend. Again, the excitement of a well played game was over shadowed by “text gate” and beaned batters but we can all assume that things have calmed and everything is returning to normal for the rubber match of this game on Sunday.

The A’s have returned to first place in the AL West with a .500 record (remember when I said that division games were going to keep the wins lower than expected) and have a half game lead over the Angels who they face starting Monday. With a win against the Royals on Sunday and at least two against the Angels, this week could be the perfect opportunity for the A’s to take a healthy lead in the division for the first time in the two week old season.

Relevant Links

Text Gate: Lawrie is a Liar and Slusser is a Homer

Next: The Drama Continues