Sept. 16, 2007

OAKLAND, CA - Former University of Dayton reliever Jerry Blevins made his major league debut for Oakland on Sunday by pitching a perfect ninth inning in an 11-9 loss to Texas at McAfee Coliseum.

Blevins took to the mound to start the top of the ninth inning and quickly got ahead of the Rangers' David Murphy with a pair of strikes on the outer portion of the plate. After the count evened at 2-2, the lefthander got Murphy to swing and miss on a breaking ball for his first MLB strikeout.

Blevins followed by retiring Nelson Cruz on five pitches on a fly ball to left field and then closed the inning by getting Guillermo Quiroz to pop up to second base on one pitch for a perfect debut.

Blevins is the first former Flyer to play in the major leagues in over 35 years and the first of three current professional players to make the big leagues that were mentored by Head Coach Tony Vittorio.

On Friday night, the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats clinched their third Pacific Coast League Championship as Blevins tallied three strikeouts in the final 1.1 innings to earn his second save of the season. Overall, the lefthander allowed just four hits over nine scoreless innings in the postseason.

Blevins went 5-5 throughout the Minor League this year with a 1.63 ERA as he struck out 102 batters in 77 1/3 innings and had just a .200 opponents batting average.

Blevins earned the win in relief during his Rivercat debut on Sept. 1 with four strikeouts and no walks in 2.2 scoreless innings pitched against Tucson.

Blevins has appeared in a total of 59 games this season as a relief pitcher including 17 for Double-A Midland after being dealt as part of the Jason Kendall trade from the Cubs organization to the Oakland farm system on July 17. He was 1-3 with a 3.32 ERA for the RockHounds with 29 strikeouts and just five walks in 21.2 innings pitched.

Oakland is scheduled to play host to Seattle in a three-game series on Mon.-Wed. After an off-day on Thursday, Oakland heads to Cleveland for a three-game series next weekend.