This week:
Mariners 5, A's 2
Cahill was brilliant but only able to last 4 and 2/3s before reaching the century mark. Willingham's first inning 2 run bomb was the only offense of the evening. King Felix looked like a Cy Young winner.
Mariners 6, A's 2
The A's wasted another great starting performance from Brett Anderson. The offense was largely silent and poor outings from Breslow and Fuentes combined with a costly Daric Barton error doomed the A's to loss number 2.
A's 7, Mariners 1
After giving up a solo shot to Ryan Langerhans, Gio Gonzalez was brilliant for 7 innings. Jerry Blevins finished things off nicely. The sun helped out a couple times, but it looked like the A's understood how to play baseball.
1-2 is not the best way to start the season, but hopefully the cobwebs have now been dusted off. And in good news, the A's are undefeated in their Gold Jerseys!
The good:
Starting pitching - Cahill, Anderson, and Gonzalez only had the combined record of 1-0, but their combined 1.53 ERA over 17.2 innings is pretty sparkling. They did throw a few too many pitches, especially Cahill and Anderson, but they are looking to be exactly what we were hoping for .
Coco Crisp - He carried his hot spring over to the season and batted .462 for the series with a double, triple, 3 runs, and a rbi.
Mark Ellis - He hit .300 for the series. He continues to impress by executing at every turn. Today, only 1 for 3, but three separate ABs netted an RBI, tying him for the team lead.
The bad:
Relief pitching - They blew two games. Craig Breslow looks rusty, maybe bringing him along so slow this spring was a mistake. Brian Fuentes also had a awful outing. The ERA of 5.79 over 9.1 winnings and 0-2 record for Breslow needs to change fast, but it absolutely should.
Defense: 7 errors in 3 games. Not something to be proud of. This too shall pass, hopefully quickly.
The rest of the offense: OK, not hitting against Felix Hernandez is forgivable, but not hitting Justin Vargas shouldn't happen. The bats need to wake up like they did this afternoon. Only 1 home run was hit in the set. Matsui got his first two hits today, so hopefully its the beginning of something beautiful.
Player of the Week: Gio Gonzalez. 7 IP, 4 K, 1 ER. The A's needed a win on Sunday, Gio gave it to them, case closed.
Play of the Week: Coco lays out for an awesome catch.
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/
Oops of the Week: Matsui tries to go to third on Ichiro's arm
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/
Up next:
The A's head out on the road for 9 games against the Blue Jays, Twins, and White Sox. Braden goes out Tuesday to make his first start of the season, and McCarthy follows with his A's debut on Wednesday. They go out against Anthony Reyes and Jesse Litsch. Hopefully the weak back end of the Toronto rotation helps wake up the power stroke.
Can we get more coverage of the biggest challenge to face A's fans this season - the end of $1 hot dogs on $2 Wednesdays?!?!
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