The Oakland Athletics can’t buy a break in 2011 and the hits just kept on coming Wednesday night (and into Thursday morning Cleveland time). The A’s and the Cleveland Indians dueled well into the evening, going 16 innings before the Indians won on a Jack Hannahan single to right field that scored pinch runner Cord Phelps from second. David DeJesus attempted to throw out Phelps at the plate but home plate umpire Bruce Dreckman ruled Phelps safe. Replays indicated otherwise.
The A’s bullpen put together a wildly successful evening prior to that. After Rich Harden started and went six innings, the bullpen came on to throw nine innings of relief from the seventh through the fifteenth, giving up two hits and one walk during that time. At one point the bullpen retired 24 straight Indians.
In the 15th, the Indians had a chance to win the game. Jason Donald led off the inning with a double and advanced to third on a deep Jerad Head fly out to left. However, Josh Outman struck out Lou Marson and Kosuke Fukudome to get out of the inning. He would have less luck in the 16th, but that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re having the kind of season the A’s are having.
The A’s and Indians have a quick turnaround on Thursday with a getaway day game at 12:05pm local time. The bad news is the two teams combined to use twelve relief pitchers. The good news is they each only used one bench player and will have a rested backup catcher available to start. Kurt Suzuki and Lou Marson combined on 31 1/3 innings of catching Wednesday evening.