ANAHEIM – Last Monday the Angels ended the A’s nine-game winning streak, a week later the A’s snapped the Angels six-game winning streak as the A’s defeated the Angels Monday night in front of 36,064 fans, 3-1.
Jarrod Parker was able to get his revenge on the Angels Monday night after losing to that same team a week ago despite only allowing two runs over seven innings of work. Parker allowed one run on three hits over seven innings of work Monday night to earn his tenth win of the season.
The Angels scored just 1 run for only the 2nd time in their last 22 games.
Just like a week ago, it was the battle of the alternate tops this evening at Angel stadium. The Angels had on their lovely color of blood-red tops on and the A’s had their green road softball looking uniforms on.
If you were to go to a little league game any night of the week these are the type of uniforms you would see on the youngsters.
The Oakland A’s quickly showed they were not intimidated by the Angels’ six-game winning streak as they manufactured a run two pitches into the ball game off of a Coco Crisp triple and a Seth Smith ground out.
It was established early that it was going to be difficult to score a run off of Dan Haren and Jarrod Parker.
The one-two punch of Mike Trout and Torii Hunter were in full effect in the home half of the third as with two outs, Trout walked and then Hunter took advantage of it as he lined a ball down the right-field line for a double that scored the speedy Trout all the way from first to even up the game at one a piece.
That double in the third turned out to be the only enjoyable at-bat of the night.
Mark Trumbo had a chance to do some damage in the fourth inning, but his offense has been deported to somewhere else as Jarrod Parker was able to get the 30-homer to ground into a 5-4-3 inning ending double play.
Trumbo is now 24-138 in his last 36 games, where aren’t thou Trumbo.
After allowing an early run in the first, Dan Haren retired the next twelve batters he faced, however, Brandon Moss ended that streak in a big way as he began the fifth with his 17th round-tripper of the season to grant the A’s a one-run advantage.
It was the first home run Haren has allowed since August 16.
The A’s made it two innings in a row as Cliff Pennington deposited his fifth home run of the season into the right-field seats to extend the A’s advantage to two runs in the sixth. Haren had gone 18 2/3 innings without a home run in his last three starts.
Skipper Mike Scioscia decided to make the risky move and take Haren out of the game in the sixth after only hurling 76 pitches on the night.
Haren allowed three runs on four hits over 6.1 innings of work; those two solo home runs would turn out to be the difference.
Reliever Nick Maronde turned out to be human after all, after striking out the first four batters he faced in his big-league career, he allowed a leadoff single this evening; his outing turned out to be brief as he exited after walking the second batter he faced in the inning.
Jason Isringhausen then was summoned from the bullpen and nicely walked the initial batter he faced, which loaded the bases, and lucky for him, he was able to get a strikeout and a ground out to escape the mess and keep the Angels somewhat in the game.
Ryan Cook and Grant Belfour halted any threat of a comeback in the eighth and ninth to give the A’s the victory.
The Angels are really at the point where they can’t afford to lose another game in this series, if they do, then they are right back in a hole.
Angels Next Game:
The Angels and Athletics continue this four-game series Tuesday evening. Jerome Williams (6-7, 4.59) will face Dan Straily (1-0, 3.18). The game will be televised on Fox Sports West, KLAA 830 for radio.
