Behind The Box Score

In one of the best games of the season last night, the Athletics (39-52) came back from a 12-2 deficit in the third inning to win 14-13. The Twins (47-46) had built up the lead on the long ball. Home runs by Morneau, Kubel, and Cuddyer built the lead up to ten runs. Morneau had 7 RBIs in his first 2 official at bats, walking on his first plate appearance in the first inning. The game seemed to be in lock for the Twins, the only other time they had blown a 10-run lead was September 28th, 1984, at Cleveland. It surely wasn’t gonna happen again…

But then it did. They started off in the bottom of the third with an RBI single from Jack Cust, and then was brought home by a longball from Daric Barton to cut the lead to 12-5. The A’s added two before the monster 7th inning, in which they were started by a Barton walk, and the bases became loaded after singles by Ryan Sweeney, and Mark Ellis. The hopes of the faithful were spurred on by an Orlando Cabrera double which scored two, cutting the deficit to 13-9. A walk by Scott Hairston brought Matt Holiday to the plate as the tying run. On a 1-2 count, Holiday hit a deep fly ball to right center that cleared the fence, tying the game at 13.

The lead was taken by the A’s with a solo shot by Jack Cust towards the end of the 7th gave the A’s the lead for good. The last play of the game, however, is one of the most controversial plays of the season. With Michael Cuddyer standing at 2nd base with 2 outs, a wild pitch by Michael Wuertz brought Cuddyer around third and heading towards home plate. Wuertz applied the tag that seemed to be too late. However, home plate umpire Mike Muchlinski ruled him out, ending the ball game. “Cuddy slid in and was safe — there is no doubt about that,” Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire said. “We also shot ourselves in the foot pitching-wise. It’s hard to point the finger and say, ‘He blew it,’ because we did enough blowing it ourselves.”