The scare quotes don't mean anything disrespectful about Coco Crisp's big hit, much as it was a wall-scraper of the highest order. Then again, wall-scrapers are what he does, and in any event this was Oakland at like 11pm in April -- that was probably a 480-foot moonshot in Arizona. Remember Josh Donaldson's rocket the other night? The one that hit the top of the wall in center field and that Daric Barton fouled up with atrocious baserunning? That ball, I'm convinced, would have left any other yard in the game.

In any event, my point is just that I'm bored of the term "walk off" so I put it in quotes.

I'm of two minds about this game, which I didn't watch with my usual care because I was working and needed to finish a brief before I went to sleep. The first mind is that the A's outclassed the Mariners, hitting balls hard, earning scads of walks, and just never really breaking through because of the vagaries of timing. The second mind is that Jesse Chavez, good as his final numbers look, seemed on the brink of disaster while he was in and needed the bullpen to do its A's Bullpen Things to win and then plus the Mariners' first run came through sheer unadulterated incompetence on the part of Alberto Callaspo and Nick Punto. And I think about Nick Punto's absurd head-first slide into first on that close play in whatever inning it was. And I think about Brandon Moss boinking a baserunner with a throw after Sean Doolittle picked him off. But I also think about the Mariners' ridiculous TOOTBLAN when they wound up with two runners on third at the same time.

So I don't know. Lots of derp in the game is what it boils down to, but the bullpen throwing, what did it come to, seven shutdown innings to win it? That covers a lot of ills.

Hey, did you notice the pitch that Yoenis Cespedes hit for a triple? It was a fastball in the strike zone. I persist in failing to comprehend why this ever happens.

Sam Fuld sure is exciting. Thing I'm not looking forward to: when Craig Gentry comes back and struggles in his first four games and a bunch of people start whining about how they never should have cut Fuld. Fuld is so good at defense, though. I know they say Gentry is good, but I just can't imagine someone improving on Fuld's combination of jumps and speed. He's just always there when the ball is.

I don't know who's pitching tomorrow. I guess it's Milone for the A's? I don't know. With any luck I will be in Rancho Cucamonga. (Nobody's ever said that before.)