The gold jerseys finally ran out of luck Wednesday night as the Oakland Athletics dropped a tough 3-2 decision to the New York Mets in 13 innings at Citi Field. The A’s fought back to tie the game in the ninth inning but Justin Turner forced in the winning run in the 13th after he was grazed by a Brad Ziegler pitch. Ziegler had walked Jose Reyes to load the bases before hitting Turner.
The A’s looked like they were going to come up short in regulation as they struggled to get any runs at all. Starters R.A. Dickey and Gio Gonzalez pitched excellent ball games as they gave up one run apiece through eight and seven innings respectively. Dickey’s knuckleball frustrated A’s hitters all night long as they only managed a Kurt Suzuki solo home run off Dickey.
Gio Gonzalez left the game following seven strong innings but saw Joey Devine give up a an RBI single in the eighth to Justin Turner to give the Mets a 2-1 lead. In the top of the ninth, Coco Crisp got things going with a one-out double. After Hideki Matsui struck out, Crisp stole third. Conor Jackson then managed a two-out, two-strike single off Francisco Rodriguez to tie the game at two.
Things settled down from there as the teams exchanged goose eggs into the 13th inning. Both teams had multipled chances to plate a go-ahead run but could not get the necessary timely hit. And neither team would get the timely RBI hit as the Mets won courtesy of the hit by pitch. In the bottom of the thirteenth Lucas Duda singled with one out. Daniel Murphy followed with a single and after Angel flew out to left, Jose Reyes drew a four pitch walk. The first three pitches were all over the place and so Ziegler issued a fourth intentional ball to load the bases.
Justin Turner came back up and Ziegler fired in a slider that didn’t quite slide. It looked like it would an inside ball but Turner turned his leg just enough to take the pitch off his left thigh. The HBP plated Duda and the Mets won 3-2.
The two teams will play the rubber match of their series Thursday morning at 10:10am pacific. The game will be broadcast on CSN California and will feature Graham Godfrey taking on Chris Capuano. No word yet as to whether the A’s will roll out the gold jerseys following Wednesdays loss.