Man, how about that Derek Jeter? Crazy, right? Definitely the greatest of all time, right? Seriously, what a way to cap off a fantastic career. Walking off his last game in Yankees stadium, absolutely fantastic. Almost like it was scripted and this was just a big movie. Just perfect.
Oh, wait, you wanted to talk about the A’s game? Why? Why would you ever want to do that? There’s tons of good baseball going on right now. Some teams are even in pennant races. Crazy, right? It must be nice to be involved in something so exciting. Man, I’d kill to be part of that.
But you wanted to hear about the A’s game. Man, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
This was one of those games that gives baseball a bad name. I think it’s the greatest sport in the world, bar none. I absolutely am crazy about baseball. But I have friends who absolutely loathe the concept. This is one of those games where you finally get a friend to give the sport a chance. You put it on the TV, get all excited for them to fall in love with the magic of it all, and sit down and watch.
Suddenly it’s the fifth inning, it’s 0-0, neither pitcher is pitching well but somehow is getting out of trouble every time. An hour and a half has passed. Your friend is asleep. You fully understand what goes through trapped animals’ minds before they gnaw their own legs off in order to escape.
After the game you talk to your friend, tell them that it's usually much more exciting than this. They tell you, "Man, I'm just not sure it's for me. If you insist, I might give it another chance." The glazed look in his eyes says otherwise.
This game is specifically why baseball gets a bad rep. This game was unwatchable. This game wasn’t fun, no matter who you were rooting for.
This game was the absolute worst, is what I’m saying.
The reason I haven’t even attempted to recap the game to this point is that there was absolutely nothing to recap. The A’s got runners on. The A’s stranded said runners. Hammel pitched well for 6+ innings. Adrian Beltre hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th. Woooo. Recapped.
The A’s did manage to score a run, against all odds. In a 1st and 3rd one out situation in the 6th inning, Giovanny Soto came up. Weirdly enough, the catcher put down a perfect squeeze bunt. Weirdly enough, it worked. Brandon Moss came in to score, and the A’s pulled out to a dominating 1-0 lead.
Hammel immediately gave it up, though. A Leonys Martin bunt single, stolen base, and an Elvis Andrus RBI was all it took, and the game was back at square one.
Literally nothing else happened for the rest of the game. Luke Gregerson pitched 1.1 innings, after which he gave up a Beltre dinger for the win. I don’t really fault BoMel for sticking with Greg Lukerson, as his pitch count was low and he was pitching well. But yeah. That was it.
This game was so incredibly uneventful. There’s nothing I can say. Coco Crisp had a fantastic night, going 2-2 with 3 walks. He never scored, because the A’s hate him apparently. Hammel pitched well. Soto got an RBI, I guess.
God, this game was the worst.
In a few weeks, after baseball’s over, you’d kill to watch just one game like this.
Derek Jeter, though, right?