The Hottest team in MLB vs The Best team in MLB…
Good
Morning class today we are going to talk about the Oakland A’s yup I said it the Oakland Athletics. If you haven’t
been living under a rock you may have noticed that since June 10th
the A’s have been the best team in baseball (Record Wise posting a 25-9 record
including 14-2 in the month of July so far. But there most recent feat has put
the cherry on the proverbial cake. Something they hadn’t done since 1972….
Sweep the Yankees! Lets revisit that series….
7/19/2012, Oakland Coliseum,
Oakland 4, Yankees 3 – The A’s got to the Yankee’s starter Freddie Garcia
early and took a 4-0 lead after a Cespedes homer in the 3rd inning.
But the Yankees did as the Yankees do and they mounted a late inning comeback
topping off with a solo home run to former Athletic Nick Swisher by closer Ryan
Cook. He settled down and got the final out and the game 1 win was in the bag…
7/20/2012, Oakland Coliseum,
Oakland 3, Yankees 2 – The next day still reeling from the loss the day
before the Yankees came out and gave up a quick 2 run lead. But once again they
fought till the en putting up a run in the 8th and another solo shot
to tie it up off the bat of Robinson Cano in the top of the 9th and
we were set up for another thrilling finish in Oakland as Rookie Brandon Moss
stepped to the plate. And with the crack of the bat the A’s had their 10th
Walk off victory of the season and their 2nd in the last 3 games…
7/21/2012, Oakland Coliseum,
Oakland 2, Yankees 1 – The Athletics came into this game feeling good
having won 3 straight and 2 in Walk off fashion. The Athletics had a young ace
going on the hill in Jerrod Parker who
has had an amazing start to his career with the Athletics. He was facing Phil
Hughes the Yankees young ace. And they had themselves a pitchers dual. Going
1-1 into the top of the 8th when Brandon Inge contributed in the
best way he knows how with a solo home run to give the A’s a 2-1 lead when they
would hand the ball to Doolittle to close it out. Which he dose to give the A’s
their 1st 3 game winning streak vs the Yankees since 1994…
7/22/2012, Oakland Coliseum,
Oakland 5, Yankees 4 F/12 – With the series firmly in hand the Athletics
knew going into the final game that they didn’t have to win but a sweep of the
Best team in baseball would definitely be very surreal for this young up and
coming team fighting for a Wild Card spot.
And early on it looked like the Evil Empire was going to avoid the sweep
getting to starter Bartolo Colon for 4 runs early. But as the A’s always seem
to do they fought back and managed on a Seth Smith homerun tied the game in the
bottom of the 9th. And from there as we know with this team you can
never count them out so in the Bottom of the 12th Coco Crisp hits a
single up the middle to give the A’s their 11th Walk off victory, 5th
straight victory overall, and the 1st sweep of the Yankees in Oakland
since 1972. Yup they really did something special…
So
once again we see that even the little guy has his day and if you work at it
hard enough you can put together a winning team with a tiny budget. Now if I could
just figure out how to convince Lou Wolf to sell the team but that is for
another day. For now….class is dismissed…
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