The Tigers fouled off plenty of Zito's pitches and worked the count well against him, with every hitter drawing at least two balls in their first time through the order. The home-plate ump didn't help; his zone was small, with ball four to Placido Polanco in the second the most egregious miscall. But Zito just wasn't sharp -- and Detroit's hitters took the right approach. It's telling that the Tigers, who fanned more than any AL team except Cleveland this year, didn't strike out once against Zito.
Zito was undone by a few defensive miscues behind him, one surprising, one not so much. In the third inning, Eric Chavez muffed a routine ground ball to his left, getting an overgenerous "base hit" ruling from the official scorer (Exhibit No. 834 that it's time to take the error rule off the books entirely). A run scored on the play, which came with two outs. One inning later, Chavez made a great play to start a 5-4-3 double play that fell apart at 4, when second baseman D'Angelo Jimenez rushed his throw to first and threw it away, a play that cost the A's at least one run and maybe two. The Chavez misplay was unavoidable, but Jimenez's error made it clear that the A's will miss Mark Ellis.
