Just looking at last night's Athletics-Rangers boxscore. That had to be Billy Beane's dream game. The A's reached base 20 times and hit five HR, two being three-run shots. The A's pitchers struck out 9, walked none and threw strikes (80 of 114 pitches, 70%). Meanwhile, the A's hitters forced Valdes to throw 83 pitches in 3 1/3 innings, knocking him out of the game and getting into the soft middle relief for their last five runs.

On a bright note for Texas, Ron Mahay debuted and went 3 1/3 scoreless innings to finish the game out.