The Oakland A’s haven’t given their starting pitchers a lot of support as of late, but luckily for Brett Anderson this afternoon, they did. And despite the A’s early lead the Los Angeles Angels tried their very best to force the issue in the ninth, but fell just short as Oakland took the last game of the series by a score of 4-3 at Angel Stadium this afternoon.
Anderson (W 3-4) pitched a scoreless eight full innings today, allowing only three hits with three walks and four strikeouts. By this time the A’s had a 4-0 lead after Andy LaRoche plated three RBI with a ground out and a double in the second and fourth respectfully, followed up by a Cliff Pennington RBI single in the fourth. Then came Grant Balfour into the game.
Balfour allowed Erick Aybaar to single to start of the ninth, followed by two strikeouts to Bobby Abreu and Torii Hunter. Then things got interesting. Albert Callaspo walked, followed by a Mark Trumbo three run bomb to right center field to cut the score to 4-3. Russel Branyan flied out to end the game, but not before A’s fans’ hearts jumped into their throat.
As for the Angels Joel Pinero (L 2-1), well, he had a bit of a different start that Anderson. Pinero allowed 11 hits in his six and 1/3 innings of work, along with all four of the A’s runs while striking out three.
With the win the A’s move to 24-27 on the year. Full box score can be found here.
The A’s now head back to Oakland to get ready to host the Baltimore Orioles this weekend. Chris Tillman (2-3 4.95 ERA) is set to take on the A’s Gio Gonzalez (5-2 2.20 ERA) Friday, with first pitch scheduled for 7:05 PT.
For more discussion and analysis of Athletics baseball, head over to Athletics Nation to get in on the action.