A's 5, Reds 3

Stop me if you've heard this one before: The Reds walk into the seventh inning with a one-run lead . . . of course you know how it turns out.

Marcus McBeth gave up a infield hit, got an out, gave up another single. First and third, one out.

Jerry Narron goes for the lefty-on-lefty matchup. "I like doing that with a runner on third," he said.

So in comes Jon Coutlangus. He walks Mark Kotsay to load the bases. Then he walks Nick Swisher to force in the tying run. Eric Chavez hits a sac fly. You can start totally your scorebooks, this one is over.

Narron said he didn't let Matt Belisle pitch the seventh because he walked two in the sixth. He also said he hit Juan Castro for Josh Hamilton in the ninth "to try to get anything going. Two outs, nobody on. He was 1-for-1 off (Alan) Embree. If someone was on, I would have given Josh a chance to whack one out of the park."

Fair enough, but it looked like a this-is-my-roster-and-I'm-going-to-play-it move to me.

But this was bullpen's loss. It's happened over and over again. Different setup guys, same results. David Weathers is 14-for-16 on save chances, the rest of the roster is 0-for-8.

What do you do? I'd keeping switching the setup guys. Ricky Stone is tearing it up at Louisville. Calvin Medlock is lights out at Chattanooga. Bring 'em up. Could they be worse?

It's on to Seattle for the Griffey return.