Can't win em' all

Opening Night 2010 was an awesome event! Rumors of rain were dispelled due to the sun breaking through the clouds come game time. The festivities began when Oakland A's great Bert Campaneras was presented with his award for being inducted into the bay Area Hall of Fame. Following Campy's ceremony, the A's presented their closer Andrew Bailey with his award for winning last season's Rookie of the Year award. Fireworks capped the award ceremony and as that was going on, fans looked towards center field where members of the Oakland Police Department were holding a huge, outstretched American Flag. Color Guard escorted a smaller flag on its pole to just behind second base and the Star Spangled Banner could be heard over the silence of the emotional spectators. More fireworks exploding as the line, "the bombs bursting in air" was sung. It truly was a great way to start the new season of major League baseball.

Ben Sheets was making his first start since the end of the 2008 season and showed some rust to start the game as the opponent Seattle Mariners struck first. With one out, Sheets issued a walk to Chone Figgins who stole second and advanced to third on catcher Kurt Suzuki's throwing error. Figgins then scored on Casey Kotchman's double. Seattle struck again the next inning on catcher Rob Johnson's solo home run to make the score 2-0 Seattle. Before the A's could even get anyone past first, the Mariners had scored again on Casey Kotchman's sacrifice fly to score Chone Figgins.

With the score at 3-0 in favor of Seattle, A's fans were growing restless to see their team score some runs. Finally in the sixth inning the A's put together some hits and a single by Ryan Sweeney, Rajai Davis was able to score their first run of the night. The A's would not be done scoring however. In the seventh inning, the A's got some men on base and Mariners starting pitcher Felix Hernandez was removed from the game. Back to back singles by Cliff Pennington and Rajai Davis scored both Mark Ellis and Travis Buck to tie the game at 3 apiece.

The momentum had changed and it seemed like this year's Oakland A's were a group of fighters that couldn't be kept down. Seattle wasn't going to go down quietly though.

Before the A's could put up any go ahead runs, Seattle had already won the game . In the top of the ninth Seattle scored twice on Casey Kotchman's single to give Brad Ziegler his first loss of 2010.

It was a tough loss, but it could have been avoided. Perhaps if the A's hadn't left five runners on base, or grounded into four double plays, or committed four errors the score could have been much different. There was a silver lining Oakland despite the loss as leadoff man Rajai Davis went 2 for 4 with an RBI, run, and a stolen base and number nine hitter Cliff Pennington went 2 for 3 with an RBI as well. Sheets pitched 5 solid innings giving up just two earned runs while striking out 3, but it was his four walks and high pitch count that forced him from the game early. A's reliever Jerry Blevins pitched two shutout innings with 3 strikeouts as he helped solidify his big league spot.

This loss isn't the end of the world since there are 161 games left. It reassured me that even though the A's home run leader for three season wasn't on the team they could still score runs. As the season continues the A's defense should shore up and prevent another error riddled loss.

-J. DeClercq