Game 26 Recap or This Is Discouraging

Toronto 9, Oakland 3 (WPA Graph from Fangraphs)

A's Current Record: 13-13 
I have to admit, I turned this game off pretty early and I put off writing this recap for as long as I could.  I think I'd rather eat this than think too much about last night's game (I'd rather watch the game continuously on loop for a week, though, than eat any of this).  At the end of the fourth inning the Blue Jays had a 98.7% chance of winning and the A's wouldn't get any closer to winning from that point on. 

Ben Sheets was the main culprit, making his second consecutive disaster start.  He was bad from the get go, walking Fred Lewis to open the game and allowing Aaron Hill to double Lewis home immediately afterwards.  He also gave up a Vernon Wells double and an Alex Gonzalez homer in the inning, giving up a total of four runs before finishing the first.  The damage could have been worse, as Adam Lind's flyout for the first out of the inning and Jose Bautista's grounder to end the inning easily could have been hits.  Sheets never settled down and gave up two more runs in the second and three more in the fourth before giving way to Brad Kilby.  His final line was 3.1 IP, 9 ER, 10 H, 3 HR, 2 BB, and 2 K.  Yuck.

Sheets says he's healthy, but I almost wish he wasn't.  If he were hurting he'd at least have an excuse for being this bad.  His command is way off and his stuff isn't nearly as good as it was two years ago.  His fastball is a little slower and his curve rarely breaks sharply.  There's a chance that he's still shaking off the rust, but there's also the chance that he's toast. 

The A's did get some good news as they've activated Michael Wuertz from the DL.  They optioned Kilby back to AAA to make room for Wuertz.  The other good news is that Justin Duchscherer may avoid the DL.  Vin Mazzaro will take Duke's spot in the rotation tomorrow, but he may just be missing the one start.  I'm not terribly optimistic about Duke's injury actually being relatively minor, but it'd be nice if that really is the case.