So Many Mistakes in the 1st Game

I should have gone to bed at 5:55 am. The game should have been over. It was 4-3, Oakland, in the bottom of the 9th and Huston Street was pitching. He gave up the game-tying homerun to a virtual unknown. Then he came back in the 10th, and gave up two more runs, this time a double to Manny Ramirez, who had 4 RBIs in the game. Sheesh.

However, he wasn't the only one to blame for this first loss. When they had the bases loaded and Matsuzaka couldn't find the plate, they failed to score. They only scored 2 runs in the first few innings when Matsuzaka's pitch count was in the 80's. Finally he gets his command back and gets 6 strikeouts. Too late for the A's.

After practicing the basics over the last 3 weeks, Travis Buck overplayed a fly ball and made it worse by throwing to home plate, allowing a future run to get to 2nd base. (Buck also was seen laughing when he hit a ball that almost went out -- while he should have been hitting a single or something to advance the runner. And he went 0 for 5.) And newcomer, but veteran, Emil Brown made a baserunning error in the top of the 10th, and got thrown out.

The pitching, overall, was superb for the A's. Blanton. Emery. Foulke. And there wasn't a lot of hitting, but what there was was timely, plus Mark Ellis and Jack Hannahan hit homeruns. We've just got to take care of the little things. I'm mad because we should have won that game. They gave it away.

I went to sleep in the 10th, not waiting to see the finish. It was 6:30 am. Moments later, I was dreaming, and found myself at the game in Japan, riding the bullet train, and wearing a -- gasp! -- Boston Red Sox jersey with an Oakland A's cap. I hate to think what Freud would say about that!