Finally a road victory

The Red Sox notched their 1st road victory in Oakland today. The victory came on their 8th road game of the year and the 17th game of the 2011 campaign. Clay Buchholz was rattled from the start after Coco Crisp hit his 1st pitch of the game for a home run. Although he put up zeros into the 6th inning, 9 other A's made it onto the base paths, 5 coming from hits and 4 coming from walks. You can tell when Buchholz lets base runners get to him when he spends as much time throwing to the bases as he does to the batter. No matter, he did his job and left the game allowing only 1 Athletic cross home plate. In the 6th inning he gave up a double and 2 walks before leaving the game visibly upset with his performance. Enter Daniel Bard with the bases loaded. Cliff Pennington proceeded to smack Bard's 1st pitch, a 96 mph 4-seam fastball deep into the left field corner and out of view from where my brother and I were sitting. A's fans voiced their displeasure at the foul ball ruling. Pennington swung at 2 more 96 mph heaters and he sits down. Bard gets his 3rd Hold of the season after pitching 1.2 innings. Bobby Jenks didn't fare so well. He gave up another run in 0.2 IP. Pap earned his 3rd Save allowing the final A run.

The Sox faced yet another left handed pitcher leaving David Ortiz as the odd man out. Smokin' hot Jed Lowrie, who attended Stanford University, not far from here, hit his 3rd HR of the season,  which was his 2nd hit of the game. Drew and Youk also homered today.

The remarkably relatively well attended game (29+k) actually had a fair amount of A's fans in attendance at 'Fenway West.' Most games that I have been here for usually have well more Sox fans then A's fans. Nevertheless, there was a sizable Red Sox fan contingent in the house. 

The 'Emperor of Red Sox Nation,' a fixture on Sawxheads, was not seen today. But there was an adorable young family sitting directly in front of me and my brother (this one lives here, not the one who lives back east.)  The 6th inning rain sent them scurrying for cover with their 2 daughters. One good thing about the rain- it sent a good chunk of fans home early, leaving plenty of room on the train for the rest of us.

The 'Emperor'

Red Sox 5 Athletics 3 BOX SCORE