Jesse Chavez Dominates as Athletics Take Game 1
By Jason Burke
Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
The biggest piece of drama for A’s fans in the series opener with the Giants came when Josh Donaldson was hit on the hand by a pitch thrown high and in by Ryan Vogelsong. After being assessed for several minutes, Donaldson remained in the game, and added an RBI to his night in his next AB. Other than this, the Giants didn’t make the A’s hold their breath much.
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Jesse Chavez went 6 scoreless innings, striking out 9 while allowing 4 hits and 2 walks. After rocky outings against both the Marlins and Tigers, this was a nice return to early-season form for Chavez. The 0 runs allowed lowers his ERA to 3.06 on the season. This is now lower than Giants’ perrenial ace Madison Bumgarner (3.09), and Jesse Chavez wasn’t even in the Athletics’ rotation before injuries to the pitching staff put him there.
Chavez’s counterpart, Vogelsong, had a fairly decent outing as well, going 5 1/3, but got into trouble in the 6th inning. He left with runners on the corners, and Juan Gutierrez promptly gave up 2 extra runs. These runs were charged to Vogelsong, who otherwise pitched well. He left with 3 runs allowed, 5 hits and 2 walks.
The Giants’ offense continued their struggle, not being able to string hits together. All 5 of their hits were singles.
Accompanying their frigid offense was a rare poor defensive performance by Brandon Crawford. In the 7th he fielded a weakly hit ball near the first base line on the seat of his pants, then proceeded to throw wide to Brandon Belt, allowing John Jaso to advance to second. Shortly thereafter, Crawford made a nice backhanded stop in the hole. In an attempt to reconcile his previous miscue, and threw to Arias at third to try and get Jaso. The throw again went wide, but was backed up by Buster Posey before Jaso could score.
The A’s went on to win the game 5-0.
Notes: Ryan Cook worked an uneventful 9th inning…Both Donaldson and Moss had RBI, giving each 63 on the season…Attendance for the evening was 36,067, 102.9% of capacity.