Royals Lose in 11

Game Date: May 15, 2007
A's 5, Royals 4 / Box Score
WP: DiNardo (1-1), LP: Soria (1-2)
Royal Home Runs: Buck (7)
Royals Record: 13-27

A couple of bad calls were costly for the Royals last night. The first came in the fourth inning when Brian Bannister threw a breaking ball to Bobby Crosby over the outside corner for strike three, but it was called a ball. Crosby lined the next pitch into center for a two run single and that put the A's up 2-0.

Then, in the bottom of the eleventh, Shannon Stewart tagged up on a sacrifice fly to center by Dan Johnson and tried to score. DeJesus made a good throw that one-hopped to Paul Phillips, who applied the tag on Stewart's thigh. It was close, but he was out. The umpire called him safe. I would have liked to have seen Phillips block the plate more than he did so the umpire wouldn't have had a chance to make a bad call, but that's the way this season has been going.

That's not to say that we didn't make some major blunders. In the fifth inning, Alex Gordon, who was playing first base again, nearly whiffed on a throw from Tony Pena and Gordon picked up another error. Then John Buck made a bad throw attempting to throw the runner out, but it's still a ball that Tony Pena should have caught at second. He didn't and the runner ended up at third. Bannister fought through the comedy of errors and didn't allow the A's to score that inning.

The Royals found a way to score three runs in the ninth to tie the game 4-4--the big hit coming off the bat of Tony Pena who got an assist from Nick Swisher who allowed the ball to bounce over his head and two runs to score. That looked like something that we would do.

We should have one this one in the 10th when we had the bases loaded with one out and Paul Phillips at the plate. But he hit a chopper to third and Chavez was able to get the force at home. I had a feeling then that we were going to lose.

And of course, we did.

Brian Bannister pitched well to start the game (2 ER, 5 H, 3 BB, 3 K in 6.0 IP). I liked the fact that he worked out of a couple of jams and really should have been out of the jam in the fourth if the umpire makes the right call.

Tonight, Odalis Perez (2-4, 6.05) goes against Joe Blanton (4-1, 3.48). Perez is 0-0 in his career against the A's with a 0-00 ERA in four innings of work. Blanton is 3-1 against the Royals with a 1.64 ERA.