The Oakland A’s wrapped up their series in Arlington with a Rangers-esque offensive performance in winning 8-2. The A’s received strong performances from Coco Crisp, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Mark Ellis, and Cliff Pennington, among others as they slapped around Colby Lewis fairly well.
Gio Gonzalez put together yet another strong pitching performance that has jeffro over at Athletics Nation quite excited about the future of A’s pitching:
On days like today, I catch my self salivating uncontrollably. Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson are ridiculous. Today it was Gonzalez on the bump looking like a Cy Young candidate. I know, I know… Don’t get ahead of ourselves, but wow. If these 5 guys (add Dallas Braden and Vin Mazzaro to the list) can all stay healthy the next few seasons are going to be very, very exciting for us A’s fans.
I have to agree that the A’s young pitching staff is fairly amazing. If you could add even just one consistently strong bat to the lineup, this is probably a playoff team. The Cahill, Anderson, Gonzalez trio is downright filthy. And when Dallas Braden and Vin Mazzaro are your 4-5 guys, you’re in pretty good shape.
The win moves the A’s to one game over .500 and within 7.5 games of first place with 33 games left in the regular season. It remains to be seen whether that’s enough time to make something happen, but nobody can say the A’s aren’t battling to the end.