A day after the New York Yankees unloaded 22 runs on the Oakland Athletics unsuspecting pitching, the A’s turned around and put a similar beatdown on the Boston Red Sox. After Boston took an early 1-0 lead, the A’s proceeded to put up eight unanswered runs en route to a 15-5 victory.
The A’s used a six-run fourth inning to blow the game open and never looked back in spite of Thursday’s blown lead. The fourth inning featured a Scott Sizemore two-run home run, a two-run double by HIdeki Matsui, and finally a two-run home run by Josh Willingham who quietly now has 23 home runs on the season.
Aside from Coco Crisp, the A’s lineup got big days across the board. Jemile Weeks was 3-for-5 with three runs scored. Brandon Allen had a pair of hits and also reached base on an error. David DeJesus was 2-for-5 with the RBIs, Kurt Suzuki had a pair of hits, Cliff Pennington had three hits, and Sizemore wrapped it up with his home run.
Gio Gonzalez struggled a bit as the Red Sox tagged him for four runs in 5 2/3 innings. The A’s are facing a doubleheader on Saturday but the bullpen did not have much in the way of high stress innings. Brian Fuentes, Grant Balfour and Craig Breslow combined for 2 1/3 innings of one walk, one hit ball. Jerry Blevins gave up a run in the ninth, but otherwise got through fairly well, too. This provides the A’s with some decent arms available for Saturday’s doubleheader.