Athletics:  3  Angels:  1

Hello from Southern California! Caught the game tonight in Anaheim and it was a good one.

There was not a lot of offense coming from the team tonight, as the A’s only combined for 6 hits, 2 walks and 3 runs.  They scored in the first inning after Coco Crisp lead off the game with a triple and Seth Smith followed with an RBI ground out.  They would score their other two runs on solo home runs, Brandon Moss lead off the fifth with his 17th of the season and Cliff Pennington lead off the sixth with his fifth of the season.

They threatened in the seventh, loading the bases with only one out, but Stephen Drew struck out and Cliff Pennington grounded out to end the inning.  They also got two on in the eighth inning, but the inning ended after Stephen Drew struck out.

Jarrod Parker was pretty solid tonight, throwing seven innings and only allowing 3 hits, 1 run and walking 2 while striking out 2.  The only run he allowed came in the third when he walked with Mike Trout with 2 outs.  Mike Trout stole second and a throwing error by George Kottaras allowed him to move to third.  Torii Hunter then followed with a double, scoring Trout and then advanced to third on another error by Seth Smith who was in right field today. Parker was able to get out of the inning by getting Albert Pujols to pop up to second base.

Ryan Cook pitched a clean 8th inning, allowing only one hit.  Grant Balfour recorded his 17th save of the season, he did not allow a baserunner and struck out 2.

The A’s needed this win tonight.  Had they lost they would have only been a game and a half ahead of the Angels, but they now have a 3 1/2 game lead on their division rivals.