Game 12 featured the A’s in an 8pm night cap against M’s. Perhaps it was the humidity, perhaps it was the late game time, perhaps it was pure exhaustion from a long season. Whatever the reason, the A’s were silent offensively.

The reason for the A’s offensive woos were numerous. For starters, the A’s bats were silent, as the team struggled to produce hits. Both Dale and Jason were a combined 0 and 5. A poor job by the third base coach Harrison told Tony to lead the bag prematurely on a fly-ball out by A-WOL, leading to a double play. If that weren’t enough, some unclassy and untimely “Casey Jones” impersonations by Matt and John converted walks draw from the struggling M’s pitcher into strike-outs. In all, the A’s offense was shut-out in 4 innings of play.

Defensively, the A’s were solid. Clare, the A’s starting pitching, yielded only 7 runs in 4 innings of work. However, the A’s bullpen couldn’t make her performance, fielding 18 runs in 3 innings of work, which included 2 grand slams.

A tense situation occurred in the 3rd inning as A-WOL injured his right hand fielding a ground ball at third. He left the field that inning and returned only to bat. Remarkably, he was able to make a hit later on in the game, regardless of the injured right hand.

Despite the heroics, the A’s fell to the M’s 25-7 in a game they would rather forget.

Andy Wolan is a reporter for MLSB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Softball or its clubs.