Phillies drop finale in Oakland

OAKLAND - The A's tried their hardest to continue their epic collapse but, in the end, they were no match for the Phillies, who left the O.co Coliseum as 8-6 losers yesterday thanks to a two-run, walkoff home run by Josh Donaldson off Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez in the 10th inning.

One day after the Phillies seized a 3-0 victory, A.J. Burnett walked six batters and hit two more with pitches in a sloppy performance by both teams. The A's are atop the wild-card standings, by one-half game over Kansas City and by two games over Seattle. Oakland held a four-game lead in the American League West on Aug. 10, but since then has lost 26 of 39 games to fall 10 1/2 games behind the Angels.

The A's today begin a three-game series against the visiting Angels, who are still battling Baltimore for homefield advantage in the AL. Oakland finishes the season with a four-game series in Texas.

The Phillies, on the other hand, are in a different kind of race that is nevertheless meaningful. They finished yesterday's game with the seventh-worst record in the majors, meaning they would pick in the top 10 in June's draft. Draft order is set by reverse order of finish, although the Astros are already guaranteed to have the No. 2 pick as compensation for failing to sign this year's first-rounder. So the Phillies currently occupy the No. 8 position. The Phillies selected seventh this past June, taking LSU righthander Aaron Nola.

With so many teams bunched together in the second half of the top 10 of the draft, you might want to root for losses this week as the Phillies finish out the season against the Marlins and the Braves.

They took care of business yesterday, although not before matching the A's tit-for-tat through nine innings.

In the third inning, Burnett walked three and hit one with a pitch, including a bases-loaded walk to Geovany Soto, forcing a run home and giving the A's a 4-3 lead. He also struck out Eric Sogard with the bases loaded to end the inning.

In the fourth inning, Carlos Ruiz laced a two-out double inside the leftfield line to score Ben Revere from first base, tying the game at 4-4. Marlon Byrd's RBI double on a curious route by Coco Crisp gave the Phillies a 1-0 lead in the first inning, but the A's answered with three runs in the bottom of the frame as Burnett walked one, hit one with a pitch, and allowed an RBI double to Brandon Moss, along with an RBI single to Adam Dunn and a sacrifice fly to Josh Reddick.

"The offense kept battling back and the bullpen did a good job overall to give us some chances," manager Ryne Sandberg said.

After getting Dunn to line out for the first out of the fifth inning, Burnett walked his fifth and sixth batters, prompting Sandberg to lift him in favor of Cesar Jimenez. Of the 24 batters Burnett faced, 11 reached base, three via hit, six via walk, and two via hit by pitch. He threw 85 pitches, just 48 of them for strikes.

Jimenez allowed a towering, two-out double to Soto that bounced off the base of the wall below the 388-foot mark in right-centerfield, driving two runs home and giving the A's a 6-4 lead.

The Phillies answered in the bottom of the sixth, the biggest hit coming from Freddy Galvis, who tripled off the leftfield wall in front of a stumbling Jonny Gomes, scoring Cody Asche and putting himself in position to score on a Ben Revere single that tied the game, 6-6.

After Justin De Fratus escaped a ninth-inning jam by striking out Soto and Sogard, the hard-throwing but erratic Gonzalez entered in the 10th, allowing a single to Nate Freiman and then a bomb to Donaldson that sent the A's streaming onto the field.

As the Coliseum's archaic sound system blared "Celebrate Good Times," a couple of teammates distracted Donaldson with a purposefully errant shaving cream pie and then doused him with a full cooler of Gatorade and ice as he was interviewed in front of the dugout.

The Phillies, meanwhile, flew on to Florida in preparation for a week in which losses will mean much more than wins.

Blog: ph.ly/HighCheese