'A' for effort
OAKLAND, Calif. — Coco Crisp saved a likely home run, and Oakland’s season for at least one more game.
If the center fielder had any lingering frustration about that two-run error that dearly cost Oakland in Game 2, this might have erased it.
Crisp made a spectacular leaping catch at the top of the center-field wall to rob Prince Fielder, and that was just one in a handful of defensive gems by the Athletics to back Brett Anderson in a 2-0 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night.
The A’s cut their deficit in the best-of-five AL division series to 2-1.
Anderson outdueled fellow postseason first-timer Anibal Sanchez and the upstart A’s showed off stellar defense all over the diamond to avoid another playoff sweep by Detroit.
“Robbed home runs are good,” Anderson posted on Twitter late Tuesday.
“You see him hit it and you just kind of put your head down a little bit because you think you just gave up a homer,” Anderson said. “Then you see him plow through there and catch the ball and it kind of kick starts you to go out there and make pitches.”
Yoenis Cespedes hit an RBI single in the first inning and Seth Smith homered in the fifth. That was plenty on a night Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera, Fielder and the Tigers’ high-priced offense were shut down by the low-budget A’s.
Tigers 16-game winner Max Scherzer will try to close out the series in Game 4 Wednesday night against A’s rookie A.J. Griffin. Detroit swept the A’s in the 2006 AL championship series.
Fielder was the biggest victim of Oakland’s spot-on defense, robbed three times. First by Crisp, Oakland’s most experienced player whose blunder on Cabrera’s fly allowed two runs to score in a 5-4 loss Sunday in Detroit.
“Not to be all over-confident or anything, I think I’m going to catch everything out there,” Crisp said. “Obviously it doesn’t happen that way.”
Crisp let out a big “Whoo!” after raising his arm to signal he’d made the grab.
“I thought I had a hit,” Fielder offered afterward.
“Coco’s catch, the ball was out of the ballpark and it came back,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “The key to that play was he was playing deep and that enabled him to get into a spot to get up and make the catch. And it was a great catch, no doubt about it.”
