Yeah it helps that we are playing the A's, but still three wins are three wins. And we beat a left handed starter. I guess we'll see when Cleveland comes to town if we are any good. One of those strange games where we got more runs than hits. We got 4 hits in the game, took five walks and scored 5 runs. Most of them came on a three run homer by Barajas. And Lind had 2 of the 4 hits. He has his average up to .306.

The real story of the game was Shawn Marcum. He was terrific. 7 innings, 3 hits, 2 walks, 1 run off a Bobby Crosby homerun, his second of the series. I really really thought Shawn should have came out after the 6th. In the 7th he gave up 2 of his 3 hits for the game. First two batters singled, Thomas on a liner up the middle and Gonzalez on a pop up that fell between 3 guys, dumb luck. Then Marcum walked Cust, at which point I was yelling at the TV for Cito the make the change. Then Ellis ground to Mac on a ball that couldn't have been turned for a double play. Johnny made a quick decision to come because Thomas was running (to use the term loosely) home. Mac's throw beat Thomas home by 5 to 10 feet. Mac as always is amazing.

Next batter Hannahan hit a slow one to Scoot and he and Mac turned a very nice double play. So Marcum had the bases loaded no one out and got out of it with no runs scoring, with the help of 2 great plays. If Mac hadn't been playing short, I don't think, either of those plays get made. Downs came in to pitch the 8th and BJ finished, each continuing the great job our bullpen has done.

In our half of the 7th we got two runs in fairly strange ways. Lind got a single and the A's pulled Gio, who really pitched great in his first major league start. Or at least we made him look great. We've made a number of pitchers look great this year. Santiago Casilla came in and walked Rolen. A really bad move because Rolen really isn't hitting at all, due to a sore shoulder I guess. Castilla threw a wild pitch to move the runners to 2nd and 3rd. But he got Mench to ground out without moving up the runners.

With Mac up Lind scored on what sort of looked like a swinging suicide squeeze. Mac barely tapped the ball the pitcher came home with it, Lind running on the swing made a great slide and beat the tag, though Suzuki dropped the ball anyway. Then Scoot walked to load the bases and the A's brought in Joey Devine to pitch and Cito pinch hit Stairs for Eck.

This was where it got confusing and unfortunately I was on the phone at the time and didn't really catch on to what happened but what I figure is Stairs hit a easy ground ball to second but Ellis instead of throwing to second and having Crosby throw to first for an easy double play, Ellis ran towards Scoot. Scoot smartly stopped and Ellis didn't go after him to tag him, but threw to first taking the force off at second.

That's where it got confusing, Barton, at first, threw home and Mac was tagged out at the plate for the third out. What I didn't realize and what the camera didn't show was that Rolen was on third at the start of the play and he had scored. Since Ellis didn't get the normal force at second and throw to first double play, Rolen's run counted because he scored before the last out.

TSN had us at 4 runs at the start of the 8th inning then it changed to 5 without the commentators saying anything about it. Gameday had the score at 4 until the end of the 8th. I had thought it was a 4 run lead and was wondering why Cito had put in Downs. Then saw that it was a 3 run lead and was fine with Downs coming in. Then there was the confusion. Then Ryan came in and I thought 'well it must be a 3 run lead or BJ wouldn't be in'. Then Torgen explained what happened in the game thread, thanks Torgen.

Tomorrow we go for the sweep behind AJ. Should be fun. I am not on my computer and don't have the link to the fangraph and don't have my spell check but I'm going to post this as is and fix it tomorrow when I have my own stuff......

Forgot the Jays of the Day. Barajas (.218 WPA) and Marcum (.292). No real Suckage Jay, Scoot had the worst WPA at -.039.