Blown Jobs - Ricardo Rincon Edition

For as bad as people make Rincon out to be, he only had two blown saves this season. And our mighty A's came back to win both of those games.

Blown Save Number: 1
4/17/2005
Anaheim at Oakland

Kirk Saarloos got off to a rocky start, giving up three runs in his first two innings against the Angels. However, he took a lead into the third, as our A's scored two runs in the first and two runs in the second. Saarloos settled down and didn't allow another run over the next three innings. After walking Jeff Davanon and giving up a single to Vladimir Guerrero to start the sixth, he was pulled in favor of Ricardo Rincon. Rincon quickly fell behind Garrett Anderson 2-0...then gave up a three-run homerun. Rincon would retire Steve Finley before being pulled in favor of Huston Street.

The Angels took a two-run lead into the bottom of the sixth, but it quickly disappeared after a Scott Hatteberg single and Marco Scutaro two-run homer. The A's lead would hold up and they'd go on to win 7-6. Huston Street would pick up his first Major League victory and Octavio Dotel would pick up his first (and only???) save of the season.

Anaheim - 7, Oakland - 6


Blown Save Number: 2
7/5/2005
Oakland at Toronto

Bottom of 7th ............................. Score
Ricardo Rincon pitching for Oakland ...... OAK TOR
R Rincon relieved D Haren. ................ 5 . 4
O Hudson homered to center. ............... 5 . 5

That's pretty much that. We'd go on to win in 11.

Oakland - 10, Toronto - 7

These were just a couple of cases of Rincon failing to do his job.

Macha's still having him face WAY too many right-handers, but with only one lefty in the 'pen for a majority of the year, I'm willing to cut him a little more slack than I have in previous years.


Up next: Justin Duchscherer.

Previous blown jobs: Joe Kennedy, Jay Witasick.