The Underground Insight 3.25.08: Opening Day from Japan Live Blog!
Posted by JD Koziarski on 03.25.2008
The Oakland Athletics take on the Boston Red Sox live from Japan, and I’m up all night to give you a live run-down of the game from my very biased A’s fan perspective. I promise I’ll be less obnoxious than the Boo Ya Network announcers!
Welcome to the Live Blog
4:10 AM (CDT) - Welcome to the Opening Day from Japan Live Blog. I'm glad you're awake and reading along. If I have this whole updating thing figured out, you'll see new stuff every half inning. If you don't, that means I have screwed up horribly and destroyed my computer with a sledgehammer.
In an effort to stay away, I have already downed a Chaser 5-Hour Energy drink and I'm on my first Pepsi of the night morning.
I'll be back with the lineups as soon as they're posted.
4:28 AM - So get this. I turn on the BooYa2 and, oddly, it's a black screen. BooYa is the same. A few other cable channels like SpikeTV and A&E are also dead. But Comcast SportsNet, TNT, USA and most other channels are in perfect working order. As I nearly have an aneurysm, poof, BooYa2 comes back.
Still no lineups posted on MLB.com. Somebody over at AthleticsNation.com posted the A's lineup, but it's completely possible that 2 or 3 injury-prone A's will have tripped, slipped, stumbled, bumbled, or been stepped on by Godzilla in between the time that lineup was posted and when the game actually starts. I'll just wait till MLB.com has them up.
4:54 AM - Here we go with the lineups:
Boston
Pedroia 2B
Youkilis 1B
Ortiz DH
Ramirez LF
Lowell 3B
Drew RF
Varitek C
Ellsbury CF
Lugo SS
Oakland
Buck RF
MaEl 2B
2008 AL ROY 1B
Spartacust DH
E Brown LF
BoCro SS
Supermannahan 3B
Zooks C
R Sweeney CF
The pitching match-up, for those cave-dwellers, is Dice-K vs. Cupcakes.
So a few notes before we get to the game:
1) Since I'm doing this instead of a season preview column, I'm going to try to toss in all my predictions during the game. If I forget something, well, it'll be less I get wrong at year's end. Clearly my first prediction was made just now: Daric Barton will be your 2008 AL Rookie of the Year.
2) If you don't get the A's nicknames, you will. I'll be using them throughout the blog. Most (if not all) of them are from AthleticsNation.com.
3) Pepsi #1 is done. Also, a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream is gone. If I keep stuffing my face, I surely won't pass out. I might throw up, but I'll be awake.
4) This BooYa fantasy show is making my eyes hurt. I won't go on a fantasy rant just now, but suffice to say it annoys the crap out of me that certain bad players (J. Pierre) are considered good because they run fast and get lots of plate appearances. Ew.
Back after the top of the 1st.
4:59 AM - Oh my god, Eric Karabell just said Corey Patterson is going to have a 30/30 year. Wow. Just, wow.
Also, I meant to note this before. I'm not proofreading this so typos will stand. I'll fix ‘em when I notice.
5:00 AM - "Baseball for Breakfast." Mmmm, tastes like cowhide. All the A's have cameras and are taking pictures. That's inspiring.
Your 2008 Oakland Athletics: Just Happy to Be Here.
They're still going to finish 2nd in the AL West.
5:02 AM - Gary Thorne and Steve Phillips are calling the game. Isn't this the BooYa D-Team? And Steve Phillips just said BoCro is the key to the A's season. Bad sign. Real bad. That's kinda like saying getting off crack is the key to Amy Winehouse's success.
5:08 AM - Switching from Pepsi to Cherry Coke for the time being. Does anybody know if it's safe to mainline caffeine? What if I crush up some Excedrin Migraine and snort it?
I'm kidding. For now.
Top 1 5:10 AM - Play ball! Yay! Did you know the umpire isn't supposed to actually say "Play Ball" to start a game. Apparently, he just says "Play." I actually haven't confirmed this through research. Look at me, droppin' the knowledge on you in the wee hours of the morning.
Also, JD Drew has already made Red Sox fans hate him. He's been replaced in the lineup by somebody named Moss. It's Boston, so I assume they brought in Randy Moss for this game.
5:11 AM - Base hit for Pedroia. Good job, Cupcakes. There goes the A's season. Astroturf is the devil.
5:12 AM - Youkilis grounds to third, Supermannahan bobbles but gets him anyway. Believe it or not, there are A's fans who don't really think Chavez will be missed. Ok, right.
5:15 AM - ManRam lines one foul down the right field line and I just noticed there's no warning track in foul territory. That can't be good for outfielders running for a foul ball.
Harmless pop out to Buck in right. Scoreless first for the Red Sox.
Bottom 1 5:17 AM - Gary Thorne just said it was a homecoming situation for Kurt Suzuki, who is from Hawaii (though he is of Japanese descent). See, this is why I didn't research that Play Ball thing before. You can just say whatever you want and it doesn't matter.
5:19 AM - THE UNICORNS HAVE ARRIVED! MaEl takes Dice-K deeeeeep. 1-0 A's.
5:22 AM - 2008 AL ROY draws a walk, and Dice-K looks rattled. Apparently it's an insult to visit the mound in Japan if the pitcher is a veteran, well-respected player. That could be an interesting subplot for those of you who enjoy subplots.
5:25 AM - Dice-K is all over the place now; he plunks Spartacust on a 2-2 (or 3-2, I forget which) pitch. In the foot. It was ugly.
First pitch to Emil Brown was way out and in the dirt, too. For most teams, this would be the beginning of a big inning. For the A's, they won't score another run.
5:27 AM - Wild pitch for Dice-K. Runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. Gary Thorne is all over the place. He misspeaks so often, I can't possibly type all of them. But he definitely doesn't know the count half the time. Brown walks and the bags are cluttered. Or clogged, if you're Dusty Baker.
5:29 AM - BoCro up and I am not confident. He takes a horrible pitch, then swings through two. Ugh. Donnie Murphy should be in there. Seriously.
On the 1-2 pitch, Crosby takes a fastball right down the middle and Rick Reed doesn't call it. Crosby hits a little dribbler on 2-2 and Barton comes in to score. 2 outs, but 2 runs in.
5:31 AM - Jack Supermannahan up, and Dice-K still all over the place. A patient team is gonna kill a guy as wild as he's been this inning.
Another full count, but Hannahan swings through a fastball and the damage is minimized.
After 1 inning - A's 2, Red Sox 0
Top 2 5:35 AM - Another leadoff single for the Sawx. Lowell on first and Randy Moss hitting. He looks smaller and significantly whiter. Must be the winter months in Boston. No sun, or something.
5:37 AM - Moss grounds one up the middle, the best defensive 2B in baseball makes the play and flips to BoCro for the force. Nice play, though not terribly difficult.
5:39 AM - Easy 6-4-3 double play, and it's a bathroom break for this guy.
Bottom 2 5:42 AM - I think Gary Thorne just said Dice-K gets "mawged." I tried to type it phonetically, but it sounded like a combination of mugged and mobbed, except he says the "Mo" in mobbed like "maw" and not "mah" (the way it should be pronounced). Anyway, Zooks with a single.
5:44 AM - Sweeney gets under one by a hair and hits it waaaay up there to medium-deep right. Dice-K really, really isn't looking good right now.
5:47 AM - Dice-K had Buck 0-2, went to 3-2. He got him to strike out on a 3-2 change, but Zooks steals second. Yes, an A's catcher stole a base. This is why I live blog.
5:52 AM - Mark Ellis is currently slugging 4.000 and is on pace for something like 650 home runs. He's pretty awesome.
Dice-K keeps getting 0-2 and then he throws everything in the dirt. Gary Thorne is laughing at all the pitches in the dirt. He walks MaEl because he fears his league lead in home runs.
5:54 AM - Rick Reed doesn't call a low strike. I'm making a note of that. Thorne has called Daric Barton "Dale" multiple times now. I thought I was hearing things, but the fine folks over at AN confirmed it.
Barton walks again. He and Cust could battle for the league lead in walks this year. It wouldn't shock me.
5:56 AM - The league leader (this is gonna get old fast) in HBP up with bases juiced. Dice-K gets two quick strikes, a close one up high, and a foul off to the left side. Dice-K is apparently on an 80 pitch limit, and he's gotta be close to 60 already.
5:58 AM - Dice-K gets Cust on a very, very questionable fastball on the inside corner. He actually set him up for that really nicely.
After 2 innings - A's 2, Red Sox 0
Top 3 6:02 AM - It's 6 AM and only the third inning. Also, the Tokyo Dome looks oddly like the Metrodome. Or maybe I'm a domist and think they all look alike. Who knows? I'm getting loopy already.
Cupcakes facing Ellsbury to start the third, and he gets a K on a pitch that was pretty much identical to the one that got Cust to end the 2nd.
6:03 AM - Lugo singles. I think he's doubled his hit total from last year. What? The math doesn't work? Whatever. It's newmath.
Also, my Cherry Coke is gone. I need to rectify this situation, so another double play would be golden right about now.
6:05 AM - Pedroia flies out deep to right center. The fans went crazy for that long, long out.
I think Thorne just said "Scroogie" about Blanton's pitch, but I don't know what that means so I'm gonna ignore it. Thorne is killing me here. And he keeps saying "tonight." I know it's a night game there, but it's messing with my head.
6:07 AM - Thorne just said Youkilis is 3 games off of Garvey's "first base with no errors" streak (193). He's making an error in the next two days.
Youk rips one down the line, Supermannahan flies through the air and knocks it down, but his throw is not faster than a speeding bullet. Infield hit.
6:10 AM - Steve Phillips is downright GIDDY at the mere possibility that Big Papi could give the BooYas the desired result. No luck though, as Ortiz grounds hard into the shift. Inning over.
Bottom 3 6:12 AM - Brown pops out to start the third. BoCro up to do his thang.
6:14 AM - BoCro's thang = grounding out to the pitcher, apparently. 2 outs.
6:17 AM - Dice-K walks Hannahan. That's his 5th walk of the game. I'm not sure he comes out for the 4th inning, even if he gets Suzuki quickly.
6:18 AM - "If you throw 30 pitches in an inning, that's more than 30 pitches." – Steve Phillips, clearly an avid follower of JD's Newmath.
Zooks lines hard to short, Lugo leaps and makes a nice play.
After 3 innings - A's 2, Red Sox 0
From now on I'm gonna update after each inning unless something really cool happens. Makes my life easier, and that's all that really matters.
Top 4 6:23 AM - ManRam up to get things going against Cupcakes. Manny flies out to medium-deep right field on a 3-1 count and Gary Thorne nearly jumped out of the booth in excitement when he thought it might go deep. It wasn't close.
Bud is in the booth putting himself over, as usual.
6:24 AM - Lowell lines out to center, and Thorne goes nuts.
Bud: Good thing I wasn't calling the game, I would've called a home run for both of those.
Thorne: I tried to, but they wouldn't go.
Yeah, ESPN isn't biased for the Red Sox and Yankees. Not at all.
6:25 AM - Easy ground out by Moss to end the inning. I'm tired, so I like 3 minute innings.
Bottom 4 6:28 AM - Dice-K starting the 4th. He's thrown something like 217 pitches and isn't close to the plate with the first two to Sweeney. On the third, Sweeney flies out deep to left. That ball went farther than the Ramirez pop up and Thorne acted bored. Yep.
6:30 AM - Bud still in the booth and I now know why I'm tired all of a sudden. Apparently it put Travis Buck to sleep, too, because he just struck out looking on a high fastball. That pitch was very hittable.
And a couple pitches to Ellis and he gets sawed off. Ground out to second. His numbers have plummeted in the last at bat. He is now slugging just 2.000. Loser.
After 4 innings - A's 2, Red Sox 0
Top 5 6:35 AM - Blanton gets Varitek on a nasty breaking ball; it is completely and totally ignored by Bud, Gary, and Steve. He's cruising here, but that could change at any time with this Boston lineup.
As Blanton pitches to Ellsbury, let's get some predictions out of the way:
AL Central: Cleveland Indians
AL East: Boston Red Sox
AL West: Southern California Angels
AL Wild Card: Detroit Tigers
NL Central: Milwaukee Brewers
NL East: New York Mets
NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Arizona Diamondbacks
Somebody on AN just called Ellsbury "Tacoby Ellsbury." I like it, so I'm stealing it. If he's Tacoby Bellsbury, then Joe Blanton is a burrito grande. Bellsbury grounds to Barton, runs for the border, but doesn't quite make it. 2 outs.
6:39 AM - New Cherry Coke makes me smile. As does Blanton getting Lugo to roll one to Crosby for the third out. This game is going horribly for the Boo Ya network. I bet they cancel tomorrow's game if Oakland wins.
Bottom 5 6:42 AM - I just now realized the title of the blog says 2-25 and not 3-25. Nobody has pointed this out to me, which means nobody is reading it. Fantastic. That means I can say whatever the hell I want and nobody will notice.
Time to eat a baby for breakfast!
6:43 AM - Dice-K still in. Apparently it's an insult to remove a pitcher early. Or not, I made that up.
He's actually pitching well now; Barton Ks on a nice breaking pitch.
Oddly, Dice-K "is really showin' something" according to Steve Phillips. Blanton isn't alive, based on how little they've even mentioned his name.
And Thorne continues to say Dale Barton.
6:46 AM - Cust goes down swinging on the changeup. Phillips wants him to use it more, and he actually could be right. Of course, that pitch works a lot better against lefties than righties. Phillips should know this.
6:47 AM - "One thing about a changeup, Steve, is that many times it's also a breaking ball." – Gary Thorne, pitching expert.
Emil Brown grounds out to third. Another quick one, but Dice-K is almost certainly done now. I've been wrong about that before though. Twice.
After 5 innings - A's 2, Red Sox 0
Top 6 6:49 AM - Just saw a commercial for one of those 5-Hour Energy gimmicks. They work, they really do.
Top of the order for Boston in the 6th, and while Blanton throws to Pedroia, more predictions:
AL MVP: Grady Sizemore (bounce back year, baby!)
AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander
AL ROY: Daric Barton
Pedroia drills one to left, Buck kindasorta misplays it but it's gotta be a double because jumping was involved in the catch attempt.
6:52 AM - Blanton walks Youkilis on 4 pitches. 1st and 2nd with nobody out and Ortiz coming to bat.
6:55 AM - Phillips predicts a palm ball on a 2-2 count to Ortiz. Whatever he threw, it was ball 3. Uh oh.
6:57 AM - Big, big at bat here. ‘Cakes gets Ortiz to pop up to Hannahan in foul territory on a 3-2 pitch. ManRam up. Still sweaty for A's fans (and Blanton, who looks very uncomfortable).
6:58 AM - Ramirez rips a double down the line, two runs score, and Gary Thorne celebrates in the booth like he just won all of Bill Gates' money and all of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends. Tie game.
7:00 AM - It's 7 in the morning and Blanton rebounds to get Lowell to strike out swinging on an off-speed pitch. Brandon Moss up looking to get Gary Thorne all excited again.
7:01 AM - He does with a base hit to right, and Thorne yells, "AND DICE-K HAS A CHANCE TO BE THE WINNING PITCHER!" Seriously, this is disgusting. The game is ON NESN, Thorne, you don't have to do this.
Blanton yanked. Geren doesn't really know how to use a bullpen, but it was probably good to pull him at that point.
7:04 AM - The Red Sox BooYa announcers only now say it's Alan Embree in the game. Weird to see him pitching in the 6th inning. And Steve Phillips just called Kurt Suzuki "Matsuzaka." Wonderful.
7:06 AM - Embree throws an 0-2 pitch that was directly over the center of the plate. Nothing. Makes that Cust call with bases loaded earlier look really bad.
He just threw a second one that was identically perfect. Wow. Looks like Bud sent word to give the Red Sox this one.
7:08 AM - Embree gets Varitek to swing at one out of the zone and that inning is finally over. It's really, really painful to listen to homers do national broadcasts.
Probably as painful as it is to read homer live blogs.
Bottom 6 7:10 AM - Kyle Snyder is pitching for the Red Sox. I'm not worried (yet). Bobby Crosby hitting, so, 1 out.
7:12 AM - Or not. BoCro with a 19 hopper off the turf, up the middle, and through into center. Hannahan up, and Thorne (who is from Maine, of course) may have called him Hammerhan, but I'm not sure.
He also called Eric Chavez day-to-day. More like Day-to-15-Day DL, for those who pay attention to transactions. Thorne is not on-WAAAAAAAAY BACK AND IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE…
IT"S SUPERMANNAHAN! 4-3 Oakland.
7:17 AM - In the past few minutes, Suzuki and Sweeney made outs and Snyder went 2-0 real quickly to Buck, but gets him to look bad on a weak pop out to end an exciting 6th inning.
After 6 innings - A's 4, Red Sox 3
Top 7 7:22 AM - Old Man Embree still in the game to face Soft Tacoby Supreme, who singles.
Geren leaves Embree in to face a bunch of righties, but he gets Lugo to ground into an easy double play. He got lucky there.
7:24 AM - Embree gets Pedroia on a harmless come backer, but I don't like leaving him in there. The lesson here kids: Just because something works doesn't mean it was the smart move.
Time to stretch! Bottom 7 7:27 AM - Snyder still in, Ellis gives one a ride but Tacoby Bellsbury kills a unicorn and makes the catch on the track. Snyder getting pulled now, on the hook for the loss.
7:30 AM - Javier Lopez, a LOOGY (and, thus, one of my favorites) in to face Barton and Cust. Barton lines one hard right at Youkilis at first, 2 down.
7:33 AM - Payoff pitch to Cust, it's 8 inches outside but Rick Reed wants to go eat some sushi so he rings him up. Hat trick for Cust, and two of them should've been walks.
After 7 innings - A's 4, Red Sox 3
Top 8 7:37 AM - Keith Foulke in for the A's, and everyone on AN is in "We're Gonna Die!" mode. Youkilis fouls one off to the right side: Thorne says he was fooled, and I almost called it a changeup, but with Foulke it's kinda hard to tell. Everything is really, really slow. Next pitch: Youk flies out to the track in center.
7:38 AM - "An unproductive night for Ortiz." – Gary Thorne, master of reserve psychology.
7:41 AM - Ortiz lines out to Emil Brown in left, who makes me very nervous by sorta half-falling/half-kneeling to catch it. Seriously, don't do that, Emil.
ManRam up and everyone on AN is still nervous.
7:43 AM - 2-2 pitch to Manny and Foulke with a perfectly placed BP fastball on the outside corner to send it to the bottom of the 8th with the A's up by 1.
In the meantime and in between time, NL awards:
NL MVP: David "I should have won last year" Wright
NL Cy Young: Can you people believe one year I picked Chris Capuano for this? Seriously. I'll go with Dan Haren.
NL ROY: Colby Rasmus, because Dusty Baker hates young players so Jay Bruce won't play enough.
Bottom 8 7:46 AM - Bryan Corey has two first names, is 34-years-old, and is pitching for the Red Sox. I have never, ever heard of this guy and there are not many baseball players I don't know. A player I do know, but kinda wish I didn't: Emil Brown. He's up, and I'm not excited about it.
7:48 AM - Tacoby Bellsbury makes a ridiculous runningjumpingleapingfalling catch as Brown drills one to the wall in center. Nice catch.
7:50 AM - BoCro up: Swings through a pitch. Shocking, eh? Then he took a ball, fouled one into the seats, and hit a ball about 3 feet from home plate.
Crosby's day: 1-4, his 3 outs went a combined 120 feet. Max.
Hannahan grounds to the mound on the first pitch. Going to the 9th, Utter Hotness (it's an anagram for Huston Street, that's it and that's all) coming on to try to save it for the A's.
After 8 innings - A's 4, Red Sox 3
Top 9 7:54 AM - Street in to face Lowell, Moss, and Varitek. Lowell quickly pops out to Sweeney in center for the first out of the ninth. Gary Thorne sounds nearly suicidal.
7:56 AM - On a 2-2 pitch, this Moss guy who shouldn't even be playing goes deep to tie the game. Red Sox fans, this is the best thing Drew has done for them, isn't it?
7:59 AM - Street rebounds nicely and gets Varitek swinging on a 3-2 pitch. With 2 outs, the defensive hero of the day is up and I'm way too tired to make another clever Taco Bell pun. Whatever. A's better win in the bottom of the 9th because somebody needs sleeeeeep. I'm never doing this again. Seriously.
8:00 AM - Ellsbury lines out to Brown in left. Bottom 9, Zooks, Sweeney, Buck due up.
Bottom 9 8:03 AM - Okajima in and not Papelbon. Thorne still thinks Kurt Suzuki is from J-…oh, wait, he just realized he's from Hawaii! Only took the entire game.
8:05 AM - Suzuki strikes out on a really nice fastball, 1 down. Mike Sweeney pinch hitting for Ryan Sweeney. I smell a walk off.
8:07 AM - Okajima goes 3-0 to Sweeney, and if he throws a fastball dead red here, let him loose!
8:08 AM - That was a pretty obvious pitch-around there. Fiorentino pinch running for Sweeney, and T-Buck at the plate.
8:09 AM - Okajima goes 0-2 quickly on Buck, then drops a breaking pitch low for a ball.
8:10 AM - Buck gets under one and it carries to the track in center, but it's caught. Thorne made no effort to sound excited for that, but pop ups for the Red Sox got a Joey Styles "Oh My God!" Ridiculous. Here comes Ellis.
8:12 AM - 1-0 pitch to MaEl is low. It really wasn't low, but Reed hasn't called that pitch all night. At least he's somewhat consistent, save a few really tough calls to Jack Cust. Ellis gets a 2-0 fastball and can only foul it to the left side.
8:14 AM - Ellis takes one up and in, but Rick Reed thinks it was a strike so it was. The next pitch is identically high, but over the plate, and it's called a ball. Color me confused. Full count and we go to extra innings on a come backer. This really was a bad idea, the whole live blogging thing.
After 9 innings - A's 4, Red Sox 4
Top 10 8:16 AM - It has occurred to me that this is the longest I've sat at my computer without checking my e-mail in, like, ever. So time to check e-mail.
Red Sox have Lugo, Pedroia, and Youkilis up in the 10th against Street, who is in for no logical reason since the A's have like 31 pitchers with them. I hate Bob Geren. Steve Phillips talks to make it seem okay to use Street for 2 innings, but I'm not buying it.
8:19 AM - Hard grounder down the line, Hannahan proves again why Eric Chavez is so awesome. Fields it on the backhand (bad decision) and throws it weakly. Lugo on with an infield single.
8:20 AM - Sac bunt, runner moves to second. 1 out. Gotta play for the one run here, I suppose.
8:23 AM - Thorne says it's a 2-1 pitch to Youkilis when it's 1-2, the immediately calls the third strike on the swing. So he knows the count, he just doesn't know you say the balls and then the strikes. BooYa only employs the best! The A's are intentionally walking Ortiz. The intentional balls weren't perfectly thrown and for no real good reason, Steve Phillips makes a big deal over it. This game needs to end, soon, with an A's win so Thorne doesn't enjoy life.
8:26 AM - Manny 0-2, but he just so, so good. He could be 0-3 and I'd be nervous (ok, obviously not. It's hyperbole, people). Street is what I guess you'd call effectively wild, but I'm not going so far as to concede the "effectively" part until after Manny's at bat.
8:27 AM - Manny drives one deep to center, everybody wonders why Street pitched this inning, Fiorentino jumps into the wall like a moron. 6-4 Red Sox.
8:30 AM - As usual, Geren stumbles out of the dugout a bit too late to pull the pitcher who shouldn't have been in. He cost the A's a handful of games, minimum, with these moves last year. Can chalk another one up to him now.
8:32 AM - Geren brings DiNardo in to walk a guy, and Steve Phillips tries to defend the worst manager ever ever. He's worse than Ken Macha. Who does that? There's no excuse for it. You're worried about A WILD PTICH ON AN INTENTIONAL WALK?
8:33 AM - DiNardo gets Moss to fly out to end the inning, but we all know Rick Reed will make sure this game is over..
Bottom 10 8:36 AM - Papelbon in to face Barton, Cust, and Brown. I expect this to go pretty quickly.
8:39 AM - Alex Cora is in for Lugo at short, but they're not really talking about it so who knows why, but I don't.
8:40 AM - "Dale" Barton walks for the third time in the game. Cust up and takes a strike.
8:43 AM - Cust wears the Golden Sombrero, 1 down and a double play away from ending the game.
8:44 AM - Emil Brown rips a line drive to the gap in right-center. Barton comes around to score easily, Brown decides to wander off second base and gets into a rundown. He's put away, 2 outs, and now Crosby is up to ground out to the pitcher to end the game. Wow. Just, wow.
8:46 AM - And, of course, Crosby lines a nice single to center. Emil Brown scores and the game is tied! Oh, wait, no. It's not.
Hannahan up, and Papelbon's fastball tails back over the plate and it looks really tough on the lefties.
8:48 AM - Hannahan keeps the game going with a liner to left. Mound visit, Suzuki at the plate. Tension!
8:49 AM - 1-0 pitch to Suzuki and he almost walks right into it. 2-0.
8:50 AM - Suzuki grounds out to Youkilis, and the A's lose a game that they really should have won.
That's all for me. It's been a 4+ hour ride and it's time for bed. I'll be up watching again tomorrow, but you can bet I won't be live blogging!
