Brandon McCarthy sparks as Oakland Athletics defeat Minnesota Twins 7-3 - MLB Update
Oakland Athletics’ starter, Brandon McCarthy was impressive with his pitching as he permitted three earned runs with an ERA of 3.58 in the Athletics’ 7-3 win against the Minnesota Twins at O.co Coliseum, Oakland on July 31.
Twins scored their initial two runs in the first inning to take a 2-0 lead. Joe Mauer was grounded out to second base and Ben Revere added the first run for the Twins while the second run was taken by Michael Cuddyer on the single-run shot of Danny Valencia
towards centre-field. Jim Thome moved to second base at the end of first inning.
In the second inning, Drew Butera was grounded out to second base, at the short-stop position Revere lined out as Mauer also grounded out. Similarly at the bottom of the second inning, Ryan Sweeney and Cliff Pennington flied out to centre-field while Kurt
Suzuki fouled out to catcher without scoring any run for the Athletics.
At the top of the third inning, Thome homered (395 feet) towards left-centre to increase the Twins’ lead while the Athletics’ batters stepped on the gas to explode six runs at the bottom of the third inning and went 6-3. Jemile Weeks opened the scoring account
for the Athletics by taking one run when Coco Crisp reached to second base on an infield single.
Athletics’ interim manager, Bob Melvin said, “At least offensively we're completely different. We have some good momentum going. The more the momentum builds, the better the at-bats get.”
McCarthy expressed his winning excitement and said, “To put the team in an early deficit and they come right back, it's awesome. It gives you a lot of confidence. We're a good baseball team and this is how we should have been playing all year.”
The other five runs for the Athletics were taken by Crisp, Hideki Matsui, Josh Willingham, Conor Jackson and Sweeney to complete a six-run campaign. In the fourth inning, Matsui hit a sacrifice fly towards left-field and Scott Sizemore contributed the final
run of the game to raise the Athletics’ lead 7-3.
The pitchers restricted the shots from the fifth to ninth inning of the game by tossing accurate pitches. McCarthy pitched six innings and allowed three runs on eight hits. He struck-out nine batters on his 109 pitches. As a result, the Athletics won the
three-game series 2-1 by defeating the Twins in two consecutive games.
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