By Morris Phillips

The first Oakland A’s rainout in 16 seasons meant the discussion didn’t have to stop. Twenty-four hours later, A’s fans are still talking about what happened and what should have happened with Daric Barton on the base paths in the eighth inning on Monday.

When it didn’t happen—Barton failed to score from second base on Josh Donaldson’s bomb that bounced off the top of the wall in dead center field—and the next two A’s batters failed to reach, the A’s and Indians’ opening night battle of wills remained scoreless into the ninth.

That’s when Cleveland pushed across two runs against new A’s closer Jim Johnson and the A’s fell for the 10^th consecutive time in their season opener.

Afterwards, Daric Barton was vilified on Twitter, supported by his manager Bob Melvin, and Cleveland manager Terry Francona almost stayed above the fray by cryptically saying “that was interesting.”

What happened on the play was Barton attempted to tag up at second base with runners on first and second and one out. With Donaldson’s ball hit to dead center, it’s Barton’s read—he’s has the better vantage point than either of the base coaches—and Barton obviously felt the ball could be caught by center fielder Nyjer Morgan.

But then Josh Donaldson’s blast hit off the top of the wall, bounded up and somehow stayed in the park. Morgan fielded it cleanly, and got the ball back into the infield quickly.   Barton tagged up in keeping with his read of the ball’s flight path, and got to third. Trail runner Coco Crisp also was on the move and got to second.

But with one out, the smart play is to go halfway and prepare to score on the ball if it isn’t caught. If it were no outs, Barton should have been leaning towards second base and been close enough to tag up, surely beating Morgan’s throw back into the infield, and setting up a first and third with one out situation.

But apparently, Barton misread the ball’s flight and trajectory, and he failed to get halfway between the bags.

Donaldson’s reaction was swift. He threw his hands up rounding first base, and seemingly couldn’t believe his teammate was only standing at third. Afterwards, the A’s third basemen took the high road.

“We make mistakes in this game. I’m sure if it went that way again, it would be handled differently,” he said, measuring his words carefully.

With 161 games to go, and two of those on Wednesday in the Coliseum’s first day, night doubleheader, it would be foolish for the team and manager Bob Melvin to overreact. But it points out a couple of important points that Melvin needs to connect the successes of his back-to-back division champs to the aspirations of this year’s team.

They need to win close games, and they’ll need to be more mentally in tune as the season continues in order to grab those tight ones.

On Tuesday, it just didn’t happen. And when the next game rains out, the discussion continues for another day.

That’s the nature of rainouts, and that’s baseball.

NOTES: The A’s signed Joe Blanton to a minor league deal, giving the former A’s player a chance to impact this team’s fortunes six seasons after he left Oakland in 2008. Blanton hardly bounced around since leaving, pitching for the Phillies for five seasons and the Angels last year, with 10 starts for the Dodgers in 2012 in between stints with the Philadelphia.

Blanton won’t be one of the pitchers that the A’s will consider calling up for the nightcap of the doubleheader to keep the pitching rotation from being thrown off going into the weekend. Drew Pomeranz is on the roster and could get the start. If not, the A’s could call up Joe Savery, Josh Lindblom or Arnold Leon to make the spot start.