After the Athletics previous road trip, I felt I had plenty to be worried about. The A’s hitting (especially their ability to hit with men in scoring position) was so anemic that I felt that even if Hudson, Mulder and Zito turned in good performances, the A’s could still pull out a defeat by simply failing to score those who got on base.

Ah, what a difference a couple of weeks can make in this crazy game called baseball.

Last night, I witnessed what can only be described as a meltdown. I’d been hearing alot about the Reds and their unexpected position atop the NL Central leader board. Griffey came into town with 498 homeruns, and since I had tickets for game 3, I felt like there was a remote possibility that I could see some small bit of baseball history. What I got was meltdown of incredible proportion.

In the three game series, Oakland outscored the Reds 40 to 16. The Reds starting pitching for the three games had a combined ERA of 18.9. Last nights game was a phenomenal ass-whooping, where Acevedo seemed literally to be defenseless on the mound as a veritable cavalcade of A’s reached base again and again. Brief worried gasps where heard when Cincinatti scored 5 times in the sixth and three more times in the 7th against Harden and Ducsherer respectively, but the A’s bats weren’t finished, and they scored another six runs in the 7th to put the game beyond any reasonable doubt.

I’m not sure what got Cincinatti to the top of their division, but they better order a refill.

Best part of the game: Damian Miller’s grand slam to make it 8-0, and Eric Byrnes pinch running appearance, where he immediately steals second (a perfect 9 for 9 on the year) and then scores on a base hit. Here’s the game recap.