The Oakland Athletics finally managed to climb over the .500 mark on Tuesday, defeating the Boston Red Sox 5-0 for their third straight win. Brett Anderson spun a one-hit shutout into the eighth inning as he notched his first win of the season and lowered his ERA to 1.63. He gave up three singles in the eighth, but a strike out- catcher interference double play and a key two out K were got him through the inning. The A’s bullpen locked things up in the ninth improving the A’s to 9-8.
The game was a tight battle for the first seven and a half innings as the A’s could only muster one run against a struggling John Lackey. Lackey struggled with his control and pitch count, but the A’s could not land the big blow through the first seven innings. While Lackey struggled, Anderson was dealing. After giving up a two-out single to Adrian Gonzalez in the first inning, Anderson set down 16 of the next 18 hitters, working around a walk and his own error over the course of those hitters.
In the bottom of the eighth, the A’s offense finally woke up. After Pennington doubled to center and stole third, Daric Barton notched a one-out RBI single. Josh Willingham worked a walk with two outs and Hideki Matsui followed that with an RBI double. Kurt Suzuki then singled to score pinch-runner Ryan Sweeney and the deficit was complete.
The A’s and Red Sox wrap up the short series Wednesday in a lunch time battle at 12:35pm on CSN California. Gio Gonzalez and his MLB-leading 0.47 ERA take on Clay Buchholz.