by Kahlil Najar

Coming into tonight’s game the Oakland A’s had a 9 game winning streak overall and a six game winning streak over the Giants however one misplaced pitch by starting pitcher Kendall Graveman gave the Giants an early 3-0 lead and the Giants never looked back and beat the A’s 4-0.

Even with the one bad pitch, Graveman shined bright. Entering the game, Graveman was 3-0 with a miniscule era of 0.42. All runs that came in when he was on the mound were not charged to him because of two horrible errors by the Oakland defense. Graveman ended the night with a great looking stat line as he gave up only two hits in four innings of work and struck out six. His ERA even dropped to 0.36.

The real culprit of tonight’s loss was the A’s defense.

Two routine ground balls to Marcus Semien and Eric Sogard in the first inning landed two San Francisco runners on the bases just in time for Buster Posey to hit his first home run of Spring Training into deep center field and give San Francisco a 3-0 lead. In the sixth inning, a wild pitch by Eric O’Flaherty advanced two more opposing runners and Joaquin Arias singled to score Brandon Belt to make it a 4-0 lead.

The A’s stalled offensively tonight as hitters 6 – 9 went a collective X-XX. The only sparks tonight were brought by Ike Davis who hit his third double of the year and Eric Sogard who garnered a single in the 5th inning. Sogard had a deep hit over the right field wall that was just foul in the third inning that shocked a lot of the people in attendance at AT&T Park as fans on both sides of the Bay aren’t used to seeing Sogard hit for power.

The A’s and Giant’s square off one more time tomorrow at the Coliseum before the start of the regular season. The Giants will send Tim Hudson to the mound while the A’s have scheduled Drew Pomeranz, Barry Zito or Pat Venitte to start.

Notes:

Coco Crisp underwent successful right elbow arthroscopic surgery. The surgery was performed by Dr. Jon Dickinson at Presidio Surgery Center in San Francisco. The procedure involved the removal of two loose bodies and a debridement of the elbow joint. He is currently resting comfortably at his residence.