Game #65: A's 2, Mariners 0

June 13, 2006 | A's vs. Seattle

Live from Section 121 I got to witness a very entertaining pitcher's duel between the ancient Mariner, Jamie Moyer and Country Joe Blanton.

Joe Blanton...
Joe Blanton looked good. How often do you say that? I wish I were smart enough to tell you why he was so effective tonight. He looked confident. He was firing his fastball in for strikes and landing a nice big slow curve ball effectively. Blanton allowed five hits, struck out two but walked no one. He had thrown 80 pitches through 8 innings. Efficient.

In his last six starts he has given up the following for earned runs: 2 (SEA), 5 (SF), 2 (@TEX), 0 (KC), 6 (@CLE), 0 (SEA). Joe Blanton pitching log.

One observation is that he beat up on the bad teams, except the two runs at Texas (he actually pitched poorly in that start). If you see Joe throwing first pitch strikes and limiting the free passes, he should be on his way to a strong start.

Jay Payton...
Hits a home run and scores the other run after going two for three. Payton also made a cracker jack defensive play (one of three excellent defensive plays that I can recall from the evening) in the sixth inning, a very nice over the shoulder catch on a Jeremy Reed line drive that could easily have ended up a triple.

Payton frustrates me. Having to regularly trot out Payton or Kielty shows off one of the A's weaknesses: the inability to find dynamic offensive players in the corner outfield and corner infield positions, Eric Chavez excluded.

In fantasy land, we have Swisher playing at his current level, Bradley flirting with 30 homers with a 380 OBP and Dan Johnson driving in 95 runs. If that happens and we get decent pitching we are World Series contenders.

Jay Payton is a nice fourth outfielder due to his defensive skills, position flexibility and he can get hot as a hitter. If you are counting on a Jay Payton, an Eric Byrnes or a Bobby Kielty to hold down your corner outfielder spots, beware and let us never mention Scott Hatteberg at first base.

Jamie Moyer...
My favorite part of baseball is watching pitchers. It was a treat to see Jamie Moyer. He is a craftsman. The fastest pitch he threw was 83 mph. The slowest pitch was 61 and Bobby Crosby crushed it about 400 feet but 30 feet foul. One of the more amusing outs of the night was Moyer coaxing the most pathetic little bleeder out of Frank Thomas. I have never seen a ball hit so gently. It would not have broken a plate of ribbon candy.

Worth mentioning...
- Bobby Crosby made a slick barehanded play to get the speedy Adrian Beltre out in the first.

- Milton Bradley made a miraculous catch of a flyball in the third. Ichiro! hit a flyball to right that seemed like it might leave the park. Bradley is tracking it and seems settled under it but then makes a crazy stab in the air and pockets the out. I guess he lost it on the way down. The best part is that the A's were on the dugout steps ready to give him a hard time and he just pulled his hat down low and wouldn't look at anyone as he walked into the dugout.

- Huston Street. Awesome. Comes in with two on. No outs. Hits the first batter. Strikes out two and induces a lazy fly ball to gete his fifth save in five games. The last Oakland closer to do that: Billy Koch.

(Game experience: Section 121)

A's record: 33-31 | streak: W-5