At Least It Was Nice to See Cabrera Again

Well, you can take the A’s out of the west coast, but you can’t take the west coast out of the A’s. In other words, strange things happen. Sometimes I say a pitcher “deserved better” in games where he gets the tough-luck loss or his team makes a defensive miscue that causes lots of runs to score. Dontrelle Willis probably deserved worse with as many baserunners he stranded, and there’s been a lot of harping about that on the interwebs, but games are decided by how many runs a pitcher gave up, not how many he should have given up, and from that standpoint, Willis was a non-factor. And you could say the bullpen imploded, but the A’s never hit anything hard in that inning. There was a bloop double, an intentional walk, a hit batter (probably the only mistake pitch of the inning), a little swinging bunt down the first base line (one of those rare instances where the ball was not hit hard enough), and a very shallow sacrifice fly. Meanwhile on offense, fatherhood seems to have rejuvenated Miguel Cabrera, at least for one night. I’d never seen a three home run game before, either from a Tiger or against the Tigers. It’s a shame it had to come in a losing effort. Also, I kept forgetting that it was Guillen at second base, and I suppose that’s a good thing in that he didn’t embarrass himself. He did a good job there.

This series continues tonight with Rick Porcello on the mound for the Tigers. He earned the win in his last start against the Dodgers, taking several line drives off his body in the process. He faced the A’s in Oakland last year and it didn’t go so well. He’ll be up against Brett Anderson, a lefty who is coming off the DL. And he’s a lefty with very good stuff. The Tigers saw him twice last year. They were able to win the first game (thanks in large part to a lot of errors by the Oakland defenders), but the second time they saw him they were shut down (and I sweat Anderson was throwing a lot harder that time). Oh, and Gerald Laird has changed his number from 8 to 12, supposedly to change his luck. For some reason, this has generated a lot of discussion. As long as no one gets 7, I don’t really have a problem, but does this mean that Johnny Damon has to buy him a new bathrobe?