MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics

After an awesome weekend celebrating the marriage of my college roomate Polina and her new husband Max, and spending a couple days in New York with friends, I was sitting on my 3 hour delayed plane, I got a text asking if I could cover the A's game today. Yes please! I landed after midnight, Mama Cox so kindly picked me up since Bart had already stopped, and I woke up and headed to the familiar O.co Coliseum.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics A's put up the first run and I thought, sweet! 

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics But then Texas scored 5 runs in the third inning and I thought oh boy, this is going to be painful.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics But A's, just like they have all season, came from behind and starting slowly scoring runs in the fourth.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics Coco Crisp hit a two run RBI double to tie the game.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics Then Yoenis Cespedes hit the ball out to Josh Hamilton... who dropped it (!!!) allowing two more runs.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics Though a 7-5 lead is amazing after being down 5-1. A's weren't done. Another run in the 5th.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics And then the bull pen came up huge. I don't think I've EVER seen Ryan Cook -not- allow a run when called from the bullpen, and he was solid.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics Doolittle came up in the 8th and did the same.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics Then bottom of the 8th, catcher Derek Norris, hit a nice solo home run. And then Brandon Moss hit a single, but the error by Nelson Cruz allowed him to advance to second as well as Coco Crisp, Yoneis Cespedes AND Stephen Drew to score.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics Grant Balfour came in the ninth with a 7 run lead. And the players were just WAITING to rush the field.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics One fly ball caught by Josh Reddick, one strike out, and then Coco Crisp caught the final fly ball and A's won outright the American League West Championship with a 12-5 victory over the Texas Rangers.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics Winning AL West is amazing. Winning AL west after being 13 games back in June is AMAZING and winning AL west on a sweep of the team who has won AL west the past two years and was leading AL West for the past 176 days is AAAAAMMMMMAAAAZING!!

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics I ended up not going into the locker room. With so much going on the field, I wasn't sure quite when people were going in, I wasn't sure whether US Presswire was allowed in club house. And I didn't want to miss the on field celebration. I guess each agency was allowed one photographer, but I was the only photographer from US Presswire whereas AP, Getty, San Francisco Chronicle and Bay Are News Group all had at least 2 or 3 photographer's each. Thankfully I didn't process this until AFTER the game or I might have felt a bit under pressure.

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics I'm pretty happy with my on field celebration shots, and it was so exciting to witness such a great win for the A's!

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics

Full set: http://uspresswire.com/sets/138662