You guys are very lucky that you have the intrepid reporters of Lefty and Righty covering this West Coast trip. You don’t have to stay up late, and you get all the in-depth analysis that you’d expect from someone who watched the game live, like:

Porcello was okay. He certainly wasn’t lights out, but with a WHIP of 2.00 over 5 innings, you might expect to see more runs on the board for the A’s. So there was clearly some half-decent situational pitching going on. It was, I will say, pretty tough to watch him just give two consecutive leads right back to Oakland after the offense worked to tie the game up. He was a little too hittable last night, and that’s just going to naturally happen once in a while with a sinker-based repertoire.

The offense was good. They clearly weren’t blowing the doors off Scott Kazmir (who looked pretty good, by the way), but they battled back three separate times after losing the lead. Farrell had them playing some aggressive baseball to drum up runs, with multiple hit-and-runs being put on, including the Sox’ first run of the game on an Ortiz single with Pedroia running from first. The other hit-and-run came as part of three consecutive singles in the top of the 7th, with Swihart scooting one through the right side of the infield to move Bogaerts to third. Betts would then knock in Bogaerts to tie the game for the third time with his second hit of the night and send Blake to third, from where Swihart would score the go-ahead run on a would-be inning-ending double play ball by Pedroia.

Ramirez still looks hurt. I don’t really have much more to say, but he’s jogging around like he’s still hurt and making some questionable decisions at the plate.

Victorino wasn’t good. Contributed a big fat nothing at the plate (two pop-outs, two fly outs) and didn’t come close to running down or cutting off a few balls in the gap. He was lifted for Bradley, Jr. after regulation (Bradley walked in his only plate appearance, but got thrown out on a baserunning error moments later to end the inning. The Red Sox right fielders, everyone!).

The defense was good…for both teams. After Alexi Ogando put runners on 2nd and 3rd with two outs, Mike Napoli completely saved his bacon by snaring a liner to end the inning. What goes around comes around, though: in the top of the 10th, Napoli hit a sharp one himself in the top of the 10th with Pedroia on 2nd, but the second replacement first baseman of the night for Oakland, Mark Canha, kept the game going (for one more inning, anyway).

Panda. 0-4 before this.

Notes:

• Matt Barnes was solid as the Sox’ second-to-last resort (Steven Wright was the last arm in the pen), and got the win for his trouble.
• Ortiz hit a double with no outs in the top of the 6th, down one, with Hanley due up. Unfortunately, he was picked off second base pretty quickly. Bad call or no (it was), it wasn’t Papi’s finest baserunning moment.
• The return of Edward Mujica! He must’ve felt pretty good, setting down Ramirez, Napoli (by strikeout!), and Sandoval in order in the 8th. But we got the win. Suckaaaa.