Vin Mazarro Gets Into The 7th Inning, Wins Major League Debut for A's, 5-0

For much of the season there has been talk around the A's in when Vin Mazarro would be called up to the big club from Triple A Sacramento.

During spring training he was said to have the most impressive stuff, but he didn't make the rotation to start the season, but after tonight's start it looks like he should be in the rotation for a while now.

It's not too say that Mazarro dominated the Chicago White Sox tonight, but he got out of jams and after the first inning he really settled down and didn't throw nearly as many pitches as he did in the first inning where he threw 28 pitches.

His overall line 6.1 innings, 1 strikeout, 4 walks, and he threw 105 pitches.

The first inning was a little bit of an adventure especially since the first batter of the inning Scott Posednik worked Mazarro for 10 pitches and ended up with a single. Posednik then stolen second base on Mazarro.

Mazarro was able to get Ramirez to hit a soft line drive to Adam Kennedy for the first out of the inning. The next batter was Jermaine Dye and during the at-bat Mazarro looked once at Posednik and then looked a second time just to see how big of the lead Posednik had and he had broken like he was going to steal third, so Mazarro threw to second and picked off Posednik who couldn't get back in time.

This was big because Jermaine Dye then hit a solid single to right center field. Jim Thome was the next batter and Mazarro walked him, but Mazarro got Paul Konerko to fly out to end the threat.

The only other scare came in the bottom of the seventh inning also against Konerko. Mazarro gave Konerko a pitch to hit and at first thought it was a homerun, but luckily it was to the deepest part of the ballpark and Ryan Sweeney was able to track it down on the warning track.

Mazarro was hoping to get AJ Pierzynski to go the full seven innings, but he walked him. Craig Breslow came onto relieve and got two strikes on Wilson Betemit to ground into the inning ending double play.

Even better for the A's was the offense. In the first inning Orlando Cabrera lead off the game with a double. Adam Kennedy was able to lay down a sacrifice bunt moving Cabrera to third. Jack Cust then hit a sacrifice fly to left field scoring Cabrera so the A's took an early 1-0 lead.

In the top of the fourth inning Cust again did damage against White Sox starting pitcher Bartolo Colon by belting a homerun that left in a hurry giving the A's a 2-0 lead.

The break out inning for the A's was the top of the fifth in which they scored the three runs. Aaron Cunnigham started the inning by reaching on an error by Betemit. Jack Hannahan then walked. Cabrera sacrificed both runners over making it 2nd and third with one out.

Adam Kennedy then hit the first pitch into relatively deep right field and it would have taken a perfect throw from Dye to get Cunningham at the plate if he had tagged, but Cunningham had a mental lapse and went on first contact and then retreated back to third to tag up.

Luckily for the A's Cust came up with the runners on second and third and Colon was pitching Cust very carefully and wasn't able to get a strike, so after it got to be a 3-1 count the White Sox chose to walk Cust too face Matt Holliday.

Holliday then smoked a fastball to right center field that nearly went out for a grand slam, it turned out to be a three run double and that gave the A's the score they won by 5-0.

The A's had some opportunities to make the scorer bigger but missed out on those chances, but the A's did come out victorious.

Just an interesting sidenote that this was the first time since 2002 that an A's pitcher making his debut held a team scoreless. The pitcher in 2002 was Aaron Harang.