A's Walk Off in Another 15-Inning Marathon

 

It was a night that started with top prospect Dan Straily throwing his first career pitch in the majors, and ended with Spiderman smashing Coco Crisp in the face with a pie. In between was fifteen innings of marathon-style baseball, with the A's PR people wondering why they chose this night to hold their fireworks show.

Things were going great until the ninth inning. Brandon Inge knocked in a run in the second, then the A's got home runs in third (Jonny Gomes) and fourth (Chris Carter). The A's held a 4-1 lead, and Straily had pitched six magnificent innings in his major league debut.

But Jeff Mathis had to ruin everything. With two on and two out in the ninth, Mathis crushed a Ryan Cook fastball, barely making it over the left field wall to tie the game at four.

Then the torture started. Although there were some good opportunities, nobody would light the scoreboard for six innings, or roughly two and half hours. The best chance was Omar Vizquel's attempt to score from first on a double in the twelfth, but he was gunned down by the A's trio of Moss-Inge-Norris to save the game.

Jemile Weeks led off the bottom of the fifteenth with a triple into the right field corner, putting the winning run on third with nobody out. Coco Crisp then promptly sent everybody home happy with s sac fly to center, and more importantly, allowing that fireworks show to take place.

Josh Reddick capped off the night in grand style, changing into a Spiderman costume and smashing a pie in Crisp's face.

With their league-leading thirteenth walk-off win, the A's are now 58-48 and sit atop the AL Wild Card.

Posted in: coco crisp,Dan Straily,Oakland Athletics,Toronto Blue Jays