Beaneball

... until it was already too late. The A's finally won, and they had the good fortune to see the Mariners continue their winning ways, so they were able to gain on both the Angels and Rangers, increasing their division lead to three games with just nine to play. According to Lee Sinins's ATM Report, the A's magic number stands at seven. Mark Redman is pitching tonight, and since the game is in Anaheim, that's a good thing. You can't necessarily expect a strong game out of him, even on the road, but you can certainly have hopes that have a good chance of being fulfilled. Last night started with the offense, when the A's nailed three consecutive hits to start the game against Kelvim Escobar, and finished with Rich Harden, who made the lead he was given stand up, allowing just two runs over seven innings while striking out six batters. As I said yesterday, Harden's the only guy in the rotation right now the A's can truly count on, and he showed why yesterday, lowering his season ERA to 4.00. Oakland hit five doubles yesterday: Mark McLemore's 14th, despite limited playing time, Mark Kotsay's 35th, Erubiel Durazo's 34th, Eric Byrnes's 37th, and Jermaine Dye's 28th. The A's have been surprisingly successful overall at hitting the two-bagger, ranking third in all of baseball with 324 of them, eleven behind the second-place Indians and 26 behind the leaders, the Red Sox. In fact, the A's ended up with a nice all around day offensively, with 12 hits and seven walks. The only guys not getting in on the action were Bobby Crosby, who struck out four times in going 0-5, and Scott Hatteberg, who had a sac fly, though he never made his way on base. Eric Chavez, in case you hadn't noticed, is now in first place in the American League in walks, three ahead of Gary Sheffield and Jorge Posada, who have 88 apiece. Chavez's accomplishment is impressive, given his missed playing time because of his broken hand, but I hadn't realized that Jorge Posada's walking ways are at least as great. Since he's a catcher, he doesn't play every day even though he's remained healthy, so he actually has about twenty fewer plate appearances than even Chavez does, and far fewer than the rest of the guys near the top of the list.

On Posada

Posada, as much as I dislike him personally for how he acted after Tony Phillips ran him over all those years ago, may be one of the more overlooked players in baseball. I can see a couple reasons for this: he plays for the Yankees, and has always had brighter stars around him, whether it be Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, or whoever; he didn't get to play his first full season (and even then, he only got to catch 111 games) until 1998, when he was already 27, so he's not likely to be able to put up Hall-of-Fame-type counting numbers; his batting average is mediocre, obscuring his great plate discipline and excellent power (.109 and .206 career isolated-OBP and -SLG). I think Posada's OPS+ numbers from his age-27 to -31 seasons compare favorably to those of some recent Hall-of-Fame inducted catchers like Carlton Fisk and Gary Carter. Do I think Posada deserves to make it to the Hall? At this point, no, simply because he hasn't displayed this level of excellence long enough. Again, it's unfortunate how late he got started, because considering how well he hit when he was so young, it appears that he may have been ready offensively for some time before, but that's wild speculation from someone without any idea of his circumstance. By the time Carter was Posada's age, he was well his decline phase, which Posada appears to have put off, for this season, at least. Let's look at Posada's career WARP3 (which includes fielding) and games-played totals vs. those of the Hall of Fame catchers. (Note: Roger Bresnahan, Buck Ewing, and Josh Gibson are omitted for lack of information.)

Name	WARP3	Games
Bench	127.1	2158
Berra	120.9	2120
Campanella	73.3	1215
Carter	126.0	2296
Cochrane	89.6	1482
Dickey	109.9	1789
Ferrell	73.4	1884
Fisk	125.9	2499
Hartnett	113.0	1990
Lombardi	75.6	1853
Posada	58.6	998
Schalk	65.6	1762

Sorted by WARP3:

Name	WARP3	Games
Bench	127.1	2158
Carter	126.0	2296
Fisk	125.9	2499
Berra	120.9	2120
Hartnett	113.0	1990
Dickey	109.9	1789
Cochrane	89.6	1482
Lombardi	75.6	1853
Ferrell	73.4	1884
Campanella	73.3	1215
Schalk	65.6	1762
Posada	58.6	998

Clearly, Posada's not getting in if he retires tomorrow. A strong comparable appears to be Roy Campanella, who also had a late start to his career, and despite being done after his age-35 season, made it to the Hall. PECOTA projects Posada to add 7.2 wins to his total over the next four seasons (plus whatever he adds in the last few games of this year), which would push him just past the second-to-last name on the list above, but being better than Ray Schalk doesn't get you into the Hall, in my opinion. On the other hand, Posada's in the midst of a season that's somewhere between his 75th and 90th percentile PECOTA projects, so perhaps those five-year numbers will be adjusted upward. Unfortunately for this rather long aside, however, I'm guessing he won't pile up enough wins to really merit consideration.

Isn't This an A's Blog?

Yeah, I guess so. Um, I hope Oakland wins tonight! Go A's! (But don't win too much, because we still want Posada and the Yankees in the first round, assuming we get there, not David Ortiz and the Red Sox.)

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 16:08 | |

Mother of God, what's going on around here? More importantly, what the hell just happened in Texas? After a crappy couple of losses, I was counting on the stopper, Tim Hudson, to get the A's back on the right side of things, which he did, though he was not without his struggles. It took Hudson 123 pitches to get through seven innings since he walked five and gave up seven hits, but at the end of all that, the A's were up 3-2. It might just be me, but it seems like Jim Mecir could be called "reliable" these days. I'm ready to call any pitcher who can throw a 1-2-3 inning occasionally reliable, however, so maybe you shouldn't mind me. Whatever you think of Mecir's overall ability, though, he threw one of those nice 1-2-3 innings last night, and Bobby Crosby added his 21st homer of the year in the top of the ninth, giving Octavio Dotel a two-run cushion heading to the final half-frame. Unfortunately, Dotel has been ... well, he's been about as flammable as any other closer the A's have had in the last five years. Which, if you haven't been paying attention, is pretty flammable. He was good before he got to the A's, but it seems like the relatively inexpensive price Oakland paid for him has gotten into his head, and he's pitching down to the level of that price. His reasons for pitching poorly aside, though, Dotel blew it last night. After he got Eric Young (who hit a key homer the night before) to line out, he showed the necessity for the extra cushion Crosby had delivered, giving up a homer to Hank Blalock to cut the lead to one. He then gave up a double to MIchael Young and intentionally walked Mark Teixeira. These three plays aren't so troubling. Blalock's a fine young hitter, and the homer was his 32nd of the year. He's victimized a lot of pitchers, and when you get Dotel's power matching up against Blalock's, the pitcher is going to lose sometimes. Michael Young, though he's playing over his head, is having a hell of a fine season for the Rangers, particularly with his .315 batting average. The double was his 32nd of the year, so, like Blalock's homers, he's going to hit them sometimes. That Dotel gave up the hit immediately after the homer, rather than shutting the Rangers down right then and there is painful, of course, but let's move on. The intentional walk to Teixeira was obvious and inarguable. The man has monster power that could win the game with one swing, the batters coming after him aren't nearly so ominous, and walking him sets up a game-ending double play. And lo and behold, the next batter, Brian Jordan, hit a grounder to second! I didn't see the play, so I don't know whether Jordan should have been doubled up or not, but in the end, just one out was made, at second base, while the tying run moved to third. Then came David Dellucci. He was oh for his last nineteen, and all Dotel needed was some kind of out, and the game was won. Instead, Dellucci hit a scorcher to right that dropped in front of Jermaine Dye, allowing the tying run to score, but leaving the winning run at second and putting the game in the hands of Kevin Mench. But no! It didn't happen that way! Jermaine Dye stupidly dove for the ball, missed it, and saw it roll all the way to the wall, which, especially since, with two outs, the runner on first was going on contact, allowed the winning run to score. Even though Dotel didn't do his job, the A's should have been given a chance in extra innings, but Jermaine Dye, who's been killing this team with ugly ofers all season, added to his and the team's miseries with yet another loss. Did it have to be this way? Did the A's have to not turn the double play on the previous play? Did Dotel have to give up so many hard-hit balls? Did Jermaine Dye even have to be in the game anyway, when Nick Swisher, younger and probably faster and more nimble, with no nasty broken leg bones in his past, was on the bench? Why do I feel like the A's are going to finish up in third place, four games back of Anaheim and two back of Texas? Maybe it's because they've absolutely sucked for the past who knows how long? Maybe because the pitcher most likely to throw a truly shut-down game right now is Rich Harden? I don't have the answers. If I did, I'd be in Oakland, waiting to step up when David Forst moves on, further spreading the Beane seed throughout baseball. On the other hand, I don't think Beane, Forst, or any of the other guys in the front office have any answers, either.

Bobby Crosby and Michael Young

Let's move on to a happier topic. Unless the Angels go crazy again and sign Nomar or something, the only two contenders for best shortstop in the AL West are Michael Young and Bobby Crosby. Actually, even if the Angels sign Garciaparra, that statement holds. But we'll talk about the decline of Nomar some other time, when we're ready to delve into some psychoanalysis of the types of writers who like to do baseless psychoanalysis, and the possible effects of that type of behavior on players. Michael Young has been more valuable than Crosby this year. Using VORP, which just measures offense, the difference is about 26 runs. It would basically take Crosby being a brilliant defensive shortstop combined with Young being a lousy one to make up that difference and while I can't say that those things aren't true, I think they're unlikely. It seems to me, though, that Young's edge is entirely about batting average and playing time. Young is hitting .315 in 695 plate appearances, while Crosby is at a measly .250 in 584. Now, we can't really disparage the playing time difference, because Young deserves credit for remaining in the lineup, but going forward, Crosby's other numbers indicate that, so long as he isn't actually a .250 hitter, he'll be the more valuable of the pair. For example, let's look at on-base percentage. Despite that gaudy batting average, Young has an OBP of .355, which is nothing to sneeze at, but the ISO there is just .040. Crosby, meanwhile, has a .329 OBP, good for a .079 ISO, and that's while drawing fewer walks than many expected: for example, in about 520 AAA plate appearances, Crosby drew 63, compared to 58 major league walks in about 580 PA's. He's still at that nice 1-in-10 ratio, but you might expect some improvement in that category going forward. On the other hand, Young's major league career also shows fewer walks than his minor league record indicated: he was perhaps a smidge below 1-in-10 during his minor league career, but he's well below that mark in the majors, talking closer to one every seventeen times up in The Show. To power, then. Crosby carries a slightly smaller edge, I think, with a .194 ISO to .171 for Young. I wonder about the effects of the Coliseum vs. those of the Ballpark, though, in keeping this race as close as it is. Looking a little closer at the pair's extra-base hits, it appears that Young's speed is also keeping him in the race: he's hit eight triples to Crosby's one, while both have 21 homers and Crosby actually has two more doubles than his counterpart. Triples, count, of course, but you won't necessarily find them turning into homers down the road, while Crosby, at 24, might expect to see a couple of his doubles get over the wall. That brings up what might be the most important point, however: age. Crosby is three years and two months younger than Michael Young. Furthermore, that gap means that Young is in his infamous age 27 season as we speak. While his batting average trends indicate that this .315 season isn't a fluke so much as the culmination of an upward trend, I'd bet on him losing about 15 points off his average starting next year, while Crosby, unlikely to hit .300 like he did in the minors, adds perhaps 20 points to get to a nice round .270. Taking away 35 points of Young's batting average advantage, despite leaving him with a sizeable lead, should be enough to make Crosby the player you'd rather have in the six-hole every night.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 19:05 | |

So, pretty much the A's suck, but the Angels suck worse. I'm not sure Oakland deserves to be in the playoffs this year, but my guess is they'll make it anyway, set up as the underdogs in the first round again, and go out in four games (they'll win Rich Harden's start), even if they do, through their own inability to win a game, end up meeting the Yankees in the first round instead of the Red Sox. At least Barry Zito almost had a nice game last night. That's more than can be said about Mark Mulder's last ... oh, ten starts or so. Given the frequent Will Carroll comment that the A's keep injuries closer to the vest than any other team, don't be surprised if it comes out at the end of the season that Mulder's been hurt (with something that's non-threatening to his career and wasn't going to be made worse by pitching with it) for the past few months. Is Nick Swisher going to be playoff eligible? I don't think he was brought up until September, but I also think that Oakland, given Jermaine Dye's difficult situation and Billy McMillon's general lack of contribution, could use an extra outfielder and will probably slip him through to the post-season roster on the basis of the rule that allowed Francisco Rodriguez to pitch for the Angels two years ago. I'll stop whining about that rule if Swisher wins a few games for the A's in October.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 08:28 | |

An atrocious bullpen and defensive performance in the seventh inning last night cost the A's a win, though their inability to get men home (nine men left on base, just three runs scored) didn't help things. All of that aside, though, I could argue for a different culprit. Barry Zito is finally getting into something of a groove, and he threw six good innings last night, allowing four hits and a walk leading to just one run while striking out five. Unfortunately, due to his propensity for long at-bats and deep counts, he'd thrown 106 pitches after his six innings and Ken Macha, not wanting to see Zito get to the ~125 mark, pulled him for Chad Bradford in the seventh. Zito remarked after the game that he would have liked to stay in, but Macha made the right call for a variety of reasons. First, Zito's arm still does need to be preserved. We're not in the playoffs yet (and if we were, Zito certainly would have started the seventh). Second, as I've said before, Zito has had the propensity for big innings, especially as the later innings come and he gets worn down a bit, and Macha didn't want to turn a good start into a bad one, so he brought in a usually reliable (though not this year) pitcher in Chad Bradford to protect a two-run lead. Third, and finally, it teaches Zito a lesson. If he wants to pitch seven, eight, or nine innings, he's got to get through the first six with a much more reasonable pitch count. Zito could learn a lot from Mark Mulder on that count, despite Mulder's recent struggles. I think too many teams are laying off Zito's two-strike way-high fastball, and he needs to find a strategy that doesn't require him getting from 0-2 to 2-2 or 3-2 before striking a guy out. By my count, Zito threw twelve balls after getting two strikes on batters. If he cut out about eight of those, he'd have been in a position (98 pitches) where Macha might have let him pitch the seventh. Now, it should be noted that his approach worked in the sense of getting guys out: Zito didn't allow a single two-strike count to turn into a hit or walk. He just threw too many pitches to get those outs.

The Angels

The Angels blasted four homers to hold up Bartolo Colon's adequate start (105 pitches in seven innings despite three runs and two walks), so Anaheim finds themselves just a game back of Oakland. It's getting frustrating watching the A's inability to pull away, because this is really out of character for this club. As I've said before, Oakland's never had these kinds of struggles in August and September, and it could end up costing them a playoff spot. Even if they get to the playoffs, though, they'll almost certainly have the worst record of the four AL teams there, and they have a shot at getting there despite a sub-.500 record on the road. Neither of these items bodes well for their ability to get out of the first round. The only hope would be a matchup against the Twins (that isn't going to happen) and even then, two games thrown by Johan Santana isn't something any team, much less one whose four best hitters (Kotsay, Chavez, Durazo, Hatteberg) are all left-handed. I'm perilously close to despair. Menander tries to reassure me, though: "He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor." So labor on diligently, Oakland!

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 12:15 | |

A few days ago, Studes at Hardball Times made the case that Win Shares should be the definitive statistic for deciding who the MVP is. He makes a compelling argument, but what it brings up for me is the necessity of something better, something that uses the outcome of each individual at-bat for every player to determine their full worth. The thing is, that stat has been created. Jim Albert, author of Curve Ball: Baseball, Statistics, and the Role of Chance in the Game, wrote this paper describing how he took play-by-play data from the 1987 National League to determine the value of each hitter's contributions to his team. The idea is that every base-out state of a game has an expected run value attached to it. A player's at-bat will change that base-out state, and thus the expected runs for that inning. The player, then, is given credit (or debit) for the effect of his at-bat. For example, if Barry Bonds comes up with one out and a runner on second, he can expect his team to score 0.68 runs. When he, as usual, walks, the state is now one out and runners on first and second. That position results in 0.86 expected runs for the Giants. Thus, Barry has 0.18 runs added to his total. The point, as Studes makes in his argument for Win Shares, is that, while the player's actual value may not be predictive (because the base-out situations they face may vary wildly from year to year), their performance in different states does affect their value. Just because, for example, Timo Perez isn't going to hit as well with runners in scoring position next year as he has this time around doesn't make his accomplishment any less valuable. Surely, the sabermetric community knows about Albert's paper. It is dated September 9th, 2001. Understandably, we were preoccupied with other things very soon after Albert put his paper up, but in the years since, why hasn't a site cropped up using his basic formula to calculate the actual values of players? (This assumes, of course, that there hasn't been just this effort made and I don't know about it.) My guess is the lack of available data. Retrosheet, of course, is a marvelous solution for old data. But how does one get a hold of daily play-by-play transcripts? Baseball Info Solutions is one place, I suppose, but you pay for the data. Perhaps I'm missing something. Perhaps there is some place where enterprising sabermetricians get their hands on all the data they need for free. Did this clearinghouse exist, you could bet on finding the coolest value metric around updated daily on this site.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 19:57 | |

Can we talk about Tom Verducci for a second? I can't figure him out. Some weeks, he says the stupidest things imaginable in Sports Illustrated, other weeks he's saying things that no other mainstream baseball writer is saying. Many times, he makes both kinds of statements right in the same column. In this week's Illy (that's the 9-20-04 issue, with Mike Vick on the cover), on pg. 91, he writes:

Yankees manager Joe Torre has a knack for playing the right players at the right spot at the right time, but he stumbled upon one lineup revision that more teams should emulate: Put your best hitters at the top of the order.

He talks about how the Yankees have done since Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez were made the 1-2 hitters in the lineup, gets Rodriguez saying that he "love[s] hitting second," but then delivers the denouement:

Too often teams try to shoehorn traditional table-setters into the one and two spots, moving better hitters down in the order and costing them scores of plate appearances over a full season. The Giants are the worst offenders. They should bat Barry Bonds second or third instead of fourth.

Revolutionary! Well, not so much, considering that the non-mainstream baseball community (read: Prospectus, Primer, bloggers, etc.) have been advocating this change, specifically for Bonds but also generally for all teams, since the beginning of time. Of course, this makes you wonder: does Verducci read Prospectus? Does he read baseball blogs? Or has he come up with this on his own? Actually, an affirmative response to any of those three questions would impress me, for different reasons.

Eric Chavez

The same issue has a small feature on Eric Chavez and his improvement versus lefties this year. I'm pretty sure Joe Sheehan hasn't written about Chavez once in the last three years without mentioning his ineptitude against lefties, and, really, it's deserved that amount of attention. If a manager could bring in a lefty and immediately turn the A's $11 million man into Endy Chavez, Oakland wasn't going to get as much value out of his contract as they might otherwise. Now that Chavez is hitting .321 against lefties for the year, we have to wonder whether he's for real or if this is a fluke season. In the article, Chavez is quoted saying, "I wasn't worried about [hitting lefties], because I had pretty good power numbers against lefties even though I didn't have much of an average." Let's check this out. This year, Chavez has a .321/.430/.526 line against lefties. His average is actually .80 lower against righties, his isolated OBP's are similar (.109 vs. lefties, .142 vs. righties), and so are this ISO sluggings (.205 vs. .269). Last year, Chavez hit just .220 against lefties, with a .051 ISO OBP and a .183 ISO power, compared to .312, .075, and .255. The 2002 season was similar: .209, .052, .153 vs. .301, .078, and .270. From 2001 to 2003 overall, Chavez hit .229, .049, .166 against .306, .069, .273. Here's what I make of all this. Chavez's averages are fluky: his average vs. righties is remarkably low, and he'll get back into the .300 range against them next year. His average vs. lefties is remarkably high, but hidden in the random variation is some genuine improvement. His true ability level is something like .250-.270 against them, rather than the .210-.230 range he'd displayed before. Second, Chavez's newfound strike-zone control is for real and will stick with him against both lefties and righties. In fact, I'd guess that he'll actually decrease the gap between his ISO OBP's by raising his mark against lefties as teams decide that he hits southpaws well enough now that they have to be as careful against him as righties are. Those ISO slugging's are interesting as well. He's hitting lefties for more power this year, but a left-handed batter with his level of struggles going for that three-year .166 ISO is nothing to hang your head about. I'm guessing that he's hitting a bit over his head for power against lefties, just as with average, and that he'll have something like a .180 ISO against the portsiders from here on out. One final point: It's interesting that Chavez considered himself to have good power numbers against lefties coming into this season. His slugging percentage was .395 from 2001 to 2003, and he'd hit 22 homers and 21 doubles in 537 at-bats, hardly numbers to grin about from a middle-of-the-order hitter. What Chavez appears to know though, and I take this as more of a reflection of the organization he plays in than of himself, is that those power numbers are pretty good for a guy with a .229 batting average. That he can come to a reporter and say, "I hit for pretty good power against lefties," is a sign of two things, to my mind:

1. The Oakland organization's ability to get a little more nuance in their reading of stats than many other teams, and
2. An affirmative team culture that prefers to point out to players what they're doing right and have them build from something good rather than criticize and tear them down. This could be a by-product of the movement in the corporate world away from tough-love and toward a little more motherly attitude.

Yesterday

Oh, yeah. The A's won yesterday, salvaging a split from the Rangers and keeping their lead over the Angels at two games. Let's not downplay this win, either, because Oakland handed Kenny Rogers a loss at the Coliseum for the first time since 1994. You read that right. Rich Harden and I were twelve years old the last time Rogers went home unhappy from Oakland, and it's not like he's only pitched there three times since that year, because you'll recall that he pitched for the A's for a year and a half, in 1998 and 1999. In addition, he was back in Texas from 2000-2003, so he surely saw plenty of Oakland. Anyway, the A's will go to Seattle tonight while Anaheim hosts Texas. Bartolo Colon is going tonight for the Angels and he's coming off two pretty good starts against Toronto and Chicago. In addition, his last game against Texas resulted in seven innings of one-hit ball and a 2-0 Angels win. In other words, Barry Zito has to pitch like it's 2002 again, because I'm taking the Angels as heavy favorites tonight.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 16:30 | |

It looks like the Angels and A's have gotten into the habit of tracking each other. Oakland is having its worst stretch run in five years, losing regularly rather than infrequently, but the Angels aren't doing much better, so the Green and Gold still lead things in the West by two games, despite a 12-9 loss to the Rangers last night in which the offense did its job but the pitching, particularly that of Mark Redman, failed spectacularly. Anyone hoping that Redman would turn into Ted Lilly down the stretch has certainly had those hopes dashed. All in all, the trading away of Lilly to acquire Bobby Kielty, followed by the move to get Redman and sign him for three years, has turned out disastrously. Lilly is pitching like a maniac in Toronto while Kielty and Redman have been non-factors in the best of times and terrible in the worst. Sure, Redman's has pitched well on the road, but when you can't even be adequate at home, you're giving away half of your games. He'll be in the bullpen in the playoffs, and I hope he only pitches in the two games the A's could potentially have in Boston in the first round. Of course, it wasn't all Mark Redman last night. Newly re-arrived Justin Lehr came in to follow the big lefty and gave up four runs in two innings. Sure, Justin Duchscherer also gave up a run in the ninth, but if Lehr had managed to pitch as well as the Duke instead of as poorly as Method Man's sidekick, the A's would have had a much better chance of winning the game and going up three on Anaheim. There's no sense dwelling too much, though. The ever-sliding Mark Mulder pitches tonight for Oakland against Ryan Drese. Mulder's fighting a battle to keep his ERA under four, a battle he won his last time out with a seven-inning, three-run performance against Cleveland that didn't get enough offense support to produce a win. Mulder's had one good game and one bad against the Rangers, while Ryan Drese, the Ranger starter, pitched poorly in his one start against the A's, but had a good 4.1 inning relief appearance earlier in the year. With Ryan Franklin pitching against the Angels tonight, the A's are probably going to have to win their game to maintain their lead.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 06:48 | |

Oakland won a crazy game last night over the Rangers, maintaining a two-game lead over the Angels, who predictably took down the Seattle Mariners. Through six innings, the game looked pretty normal, with the A's leading 2-1 on the back of Tim Hudson. Bobby Crosby had homered in the fifth and Marco Scutaro had been plated with a balk in the third, but then things got out of control. Hudson lost his lead in the seventh on a double by, of all people, Rod Barajas, then gave up a leadoff bomb to Mark Teixeira in the eight to make the game 4-2. Hudson finished the eighth anyway, but had he stayed in the dugout after the seventh, his line would look a lot nicer: seven innings, 107 pitches, eight hits, three runs, one walk, seven strikouts, and one homer allowed. The difference between this line and his actual one is basically the Teixeira homer, which blew a quality start for Hudson. The strikeouts are a quite encouraging sign for the A's that their bulldog is on track for the playoffs, though he didn't get the ground balls he's used to: just seven, to nine fly ball outs. The A's got the lead back in the bottom of the eighth, however, with a three-run rally that included a bases loaded hit-by-pitch by Nick Swisher, so Tim Hudson still had a chance to be credited with a win for this game. Unfortunately, Jimmy Mecir and Alfie Soriano saw to that, as Soriano hit his second homer of the night to tie the game the very next inning. Here's where things went nuts: following this homer, with Hank Blalock at the plate, the Rangers came streaming out of their dugout and bullpen and started holding various players back from going into the stands after some fans. Doug Brocail was the only played named the AP as one who had to be restrained, but the capstone to the incident was reliever Frank Francisco chucking a chair into the stands. The chair bounced off of some guy's head, then broke a woman's nose on the carom. Buck Showalter was quoted in the AP story:

"Tonight, it went over the line. It was a real break from the normal trash you hear from fans. We've had problems about every time we've come here."

What can we take from this? A's fans appear to finally be nearing the rowdiness levels seen from the Raiders fans who have, for years, out-enthused their baseball counterparts. That's putting a positive spin on things. On the negative side is that things were almost certainly said that should never be said, because players hear taunts and curses all game long every time they're on the road (and often at home) without responding; it generally takes something truly awful (like the racial slurs hurled at Terrence Long a few years back) for players to react like this. Of course, that doesn't give the players the right to interrupt the game and put some woman (who I'd bet wasn't even involved) in the hospital. Joe Brinkman, the crew chief for the umpires, had this to say:

"From what I understand, there was some calls made to security early during the game but I have no idea what started it out there."

What this tells me is that things were going like this all game long and that the players initially did what they were supposed to do: call security and have certain fans escorted out of the stadium for their behavior. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this didn't stop the behavior. Again, though, that still doesn't excuse going after fans in the stands. If stadium security isn't doing their jobs, then the manager should inform the umpires that they'll refuse to play the game until the offending fans are truly taken care of. I feel a little bad for Frank Francisco, because he's a rookie and doesn't make a lot of money that he's going to be able to pay this woman in a lawsuit, but he should have thought about that before he hurled the chair. She has every right to sue (unless she was one of the people who incited the incident), and I hope she does. Like the players, then, back to the game! In the top of the tenth, Justin Duchscherer coughed up the go-ahead run on a fielder's choice ground ball that was really an attempted double play gone awry. Bobby Crosby made a throwing error on the turn, allowing the batter, Brian Jordan, to go to second on the play. What's unclear from the play-by-play is whether the third out would have been made at first if Crosby didn't make the error. The run was credited as earned to the Duke's record, so the ruling appears to be that Jordan earned his way to first base (and thus Mark Teixeira earned the plate) and the error resulted only in an extra base for Jordan. Errors can be tricky, though, especially on double plays, so without seeing video or something, I can't really say what happened. In the end, though, it didn't matter, as the A's scored twice in the bottom half, once on a bases-loaded walk by Mark McLemore to tie it and then on an Eric Chavez single to win the game, scoring Nick Swisher with the match-ending tally. Was Mark Teixeira supposed to be this good already? He outdid the cycle in this game, hitting two doubles, a triple, and his 35th homer of the year. Tex is showing monster power with an almost .300 ISO and he's walking frequently enough to turn a .285 batting average into a nice .365 OBP. Even if T-Rex doesn't turn into a Hall of Fame-caliber player or anything, the Rangers will almost certainly have themselves a strong first baseman on the cheap for the next four years or so. Meanwhile, Bobby Crosby is still going about his business, locking up the AL Rookie of the Year title. His homer in this game was his 20th of the year, which is a nice round number that voters can grab hold of. Combine that with over thirty doubles and what's regarded as (whether it actually is or not) excellent defense and you've got the makings of an easy vote for sportswriters.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 07:01 | |

It felt like it had been forever since the A's won a game, and it kind of had, but Oakland finally put another tick mark in the W column last night, coming back from a 4-0 deficit to win 5-4 against Cleveland. The heroes of the game were Nick Swisher, who's really making a great impression on this team and Oakland fans, myself included, and Bobby Crosby, who hit back-to-back solo homers in the eighth inning that turned a one-run deficit into the eventual final score. The A's homers were all the more surprising because of who allowed them. Bob Howry gave up his third and fourth bombs of the season, having seen just two prior balls leave the yeard over 35 innings. He's been striking guys out, not walking them or giving up many hits, and he carried a 1.54 ERA into last night's game. Those homers handed him his first loss of the year, though, and raised his ERA over two for the first time this year. Do you want me to go back and say that again? Bob Howry has had an ERA under two all season long. Anyway, both starting pitchers threw six strong innings before running into trouble in the seventh, as Rich Harden gave up a three-run homer to Travis Hafner after having given up just one run previously and CC Sabathia, who I knew I had good reason to be afraid of, threw six scoreless before giving up a three-run rally to the A's and being knocked out of the game with two outs in the seventh. If I'm an Indians fan, however, I'm a little worried about Sabathia's performance. He only gave up five hits in 6.2 innings, but he also walked six batters, including Nick Swisher twice, and 14 of his 20 outs came via the flyball. Harden, meanwhile, gave up just three flyball outs and struck out seven Indians, improving his strikeout ratio, which at 7.78/9 innings, ranks 15th in all of baseball. Oakland's bullpen, which had done some suspect work during the losing streak, got back on the horse with three scoreless innings from Jim Mecir, Ricardo Rincon (who got the win, his first decision of the year, which is a good thing for a middle reliever, though I can't really say it's indicative of his overall performance), and Octavio Dotel, who earned his 19th American League save of the season, and 33rd overall. Thankfully, Anaheim had the good grace to get whomped last night, 13-6, as the White Sox blasted off for eight runs in the second inning, staking Jason Grilli to a lead that even he couldn't lose. Dallas McPherson got his first major league at-bat last night and, in a good omen for the A's over the next six years or so, struck out. Today's the first big NFL day of the season, so I'll be futilely cheering my 49ers from afar, hoping they won't be on TV so I don't have to actually watch them bumble their way to a 2-14 record. Luckily, I've got a team that can actually do some damage in its league that will be on TV, as Cleveland sends Jake Westbook against Barry Zito tonight at 8:00 in the ESPN Sunday Night game, which, due to football, is actually being bumped to ESPN2. Anaheim's game should be over by the time the A's game starts, since Jose Contreras and Bartolo Colon will square off at 4:00 in Southern California. I think the White Sox will win another win against the Angels, but I don't know if the A's will be able to pad their lead. Jake Westbrook's a good pitcher and, while the talk seems to be that Barry Zito's improving, he's also given up four runs in each of his last three starts without managing to finish the seventh inning. I'd look for Oakland's lead to be one or two games tomorrow, with my money riding on two.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 10:39 | |

This is really getting painful. The A's used to find ways to win. Now they're finding more creative ways to lose. The fifth straight loss came last night against the Indians as Casey Blake smacked a 12th inning homer off the once invincible Justin Duchscherer. The A's couldn't do anything against a rather mediocre Cleveland bullpen while Mark Mulder had a decent, but in the end still mediocre, game, giving up three runs in seven innings, but allowing four walks to just two strikeouts and also giving up two homers, one the tying shot in the eighth inning. In their four-year run from 2000 to 2003, the A's never had a five-game losing streak this late in the season. The only comparable streak was a six-gamer from 8/5/00 to 8/11/00. Of course, Anaheim won last night, so the Angels are now just a game back of Oakland. Boston is four games ahead of the A's, so I'm looking at Oakland's only way into the playoffs being the West, which means the A's have to hold onto a one-game lead over the next 22 games. This isn't going to be easy, especially since, after the Indians series, we'll be at the point of the season where the West just plays each other down the stretch. Even more unfortunate is that, while the A's play Texas-Seattle-Texas, the Angels, of course, play Seattle-Texas-Seattle, so there's definitely potential for Anheim to put pressure on the A's by jumping over them in the standings when they beat up on the division's patsy. For tonight, though, Rich Harden pitches against CC Sabathia while Chicago and Anaheim both start mediocrities: Jason Grilli and Aaron Sele. The A's couldn't get any offense going against Scott Elarton; I don't know how they can be expected to score any runs off the left-handed fireballer Sabathia. CC's been pretty good against the A's the last two years, giving up three runs in five innings in his only start against them this year, while throwing 21 innings over three starts with a 2.57 ERA last year. There's a very strong chance the A's could lose their lead tonight.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 08:16 | |

Poll results may be inconsistent and subject to interpretation. Baseball results are what they are. The A's are on a three-game slide right now, and the Angels have managed to close the A's lead to just 1 1/2 games in the West. I never said they were done, just the Rangers. The last two days, Oakland's been pretty well beat up by the Red Sox, 8-3 and 7-1. Those are resounding victories that give Boston a clear mandate to claim the AL East crown and, eventually, the American League title as well. We'll see about the World Series when we get there. If the standings stay the way they are (i.e. A's in front of Twins, Boston takes the Wild Card, not the East), Oakland would, unhappily enough, face the Red Sox in the first round of the playoffs. Since it's looking more and more like the Wild Card is actually going to come from the East (the Red Sox have opened a four game lead over the Angels in the Wild Card hunt), the ways Oakland could avoid playing Boston in the first round are either the Red Sox winning the Wild Card while the A's fall behind the Twins, so that they have the third-best record of the division winners, or the Red Sox winning the East and the A's staying ahead of the Twins, so the Sox would play the third-best team, Minnesota. A first-round matchup with the Yankees, fearsome offense and all, would look lovely right now after the manhandling the Red Sox have given the A's. On the other hand, we'll see what happens when the front of the two teams' rotations are represented in tonight's game, when Tim Hudson goes against Pedro Martinez. Mark Redman, yesterday's loser, seems unlikely to start a playoff game for the A's and, if there's any justice, Barry Zito won't pitch an important game, either, though it was the Oakland bullpen that turned yesterday's loss into a rout, rather than a winnable 4-3 ballgame. In any case, I'd go with a three-man rotation: Hudson, Mulder, Harden, and only throw in Zito if a lack of off-days somewhere necessitates it. At this point in the season, the way Hudson and Harden are pitching, I think it'd be criminal to see one of them only once in a five-game series. The A's have a predilection for four-man rotations in the playoffs, though, so this is all a bit of a pipe dream. Hell, the playoffs are going to be a pipe dream if the A's can't get straightened out and avoid a sweep tonight. It seems like Tim Hudson pitches against Pedro Martinez every year. It happened twice last year, once in Game 1 of the playoffs, when the two starters pitched each other to a stand-still and the A's won in extra innings, and once on August 11, when Hudson threw a masterful game, giving up just two hits and a walk in a 93 pitch shutout, while Pedro gave up four runs in five innings. Hudson has to continue his success against the Red Sox, and Pedro personally, for the A's to win this game. I'm afraid, though, that we'll see something similar to the aforementioned Game 1, but it'll be the Red Sox winning late, not the A's this time, say 4-3.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 07:42 | |

The A's got a little lucky against the Blue Jays last night, scoring two runs on wild pitches late in the game to close a 5-3 gap. Of course, they made up for that luck by pounding the Toronto bullpen into submission in the ninth, scoring four more runs after Nick Swisher trotted home to make the tally five-all, the last three on a bases-loaded double by Eric Byrnes. Of course, the A's got a little help on that ball as well, since it might've been catchable by Reed Johnson, but he actually started toward the infield, rather than away from it, and then saw the ball go over his head. Somebody tell Reed that your first step as an outfielder is always toward the fence. In fact, if Johnson had caught that ball, the game would have gone to the bottom of the ninth at 6-5, which is the score I called yesterday. Damn him. What the score reflects, though, is that I had the right instincts about Mark Mulder's performance. He gave up five runs in six innings, though he did strike out five and get nine ground ball outs. Thankfully, the Oakland bullpen has been absolutely untouchable these days, and Ricardo Rincon, Chad Bradford, and Chris Hammond threw three shutout innings following Mulder, with Hammond taking the win. That bullpen aside, though, Mulder is really starting to worry me. I think we can count a guy with a 3.90 ERA out of the Cy Young race, especially since Curt Schilling has now tied him for the AL lead in wins, with 17. Johan Santana's strong second half also has to be considered, because it'll be fresher in the voters' minds. That's all pointless, though, because the reason Mark Mulder pitches is for the A's to win ballgames, not for him to win hardware, and, while the A's have still been winning, it's only because they've only scored fewer than five runs in one of his last seven starts (and that was the one game out of those seven that they lost, a 10-3 whomping by Kansas City). It's disheartening to see two of the four aces having to rely on the offense to get them wins, especially after one of them was in Cy Young form early in the year and the other won actually won the award two years ago. Mulder's really got to get straightened out by the playoffs, because four and five runs in six innings to the Blue Jays and Devil Rays is going to translate to earlier exits and bigger deficits against the Red Sox. I'd hate to see the A's put all their chips on Tim Hudson starting twice and hoping they can steal one of the other three games. Eric Chavez had a three-walk day, bringing his season total to 80, tying him for the league-lead with Gary Sheffield, despite having about 110 fewer plate apperances than The Sheff has. Those 80 walks give him a .410 OBP, which is third in the league, behind two guys who are batting .345 and .379 respectively: Melvin Mora and Ichiro. I wonder if Mora is going to get any MVP consideration. His OPS is second in the AL only to Manny Ramirez, and while it's pretty batting average driven, that doesn't matter in value discussions. From a pure VORP perspective, Mora has been the most valuable player in the league this year, with a <1 VORP edge over the aforementioned Ichiro. Manny's a bit down on the list, not so much because his hitting hasn't been great, but because he's a left fielder. Actually, given the relatively weak crop of AL hitters this year (more on that in a second), Johan Santana would be an excellent MVP candidate. He trails Mora by 0.1 VORP, and he's certainly going to be more visible than the Baltimore third baseman down the home stretch. Back to those hitters: By VORP, the top eight position players in baseball are in the National League. Of course, with the second-best player of all time over there, the Senior Circuit has an automatic advantage, but not everybody on the list is in Bondsly range: above Mora are such luminaries as Adrian Beltre and Mark Loretta.

The Competition

Back to the pennant race. Texas finally won a game, beating Boston 8-6, and it really shouldn't even have been that close. The Rangers led 8-1 before Jeff Nelson and Ron Mahay gave up five runs in the seventh inning. Of course, this just allowed Francisco Cordero to collect his 42nd save of the year and made the Boston faithful get their hopes up, only to see them dashed. Just like what's going to happen in the AL East. The Yankees are stumbling and the Red Sox are playing their asses off, and the lead is down to 2.5 games for the New Yorkers, but Boston won't catch them. You heard it here first. Anaheim also won another game, as Jason Davis pitched pretty much as expected, giving up three runs in five innings (though just one earned), leaving the game in the hands of his bullpen, which put the thing out of reach by allowing three late runs while Scot Shields was holding down the Indians for three scoreless innings following Jarrod Washburn's relatively early exit (he threw five innings despite giving up just one run on two hits). Well, that explains it. The game recap mentions that Washburn was fresh off the DL, so the Angels probably didn't want to extend him too far. In addition, the game also featured a nasty invasion of gnats. I love it when that happens, but it's got to be gross for the players and fans. Maybe there's something biblical to be said here.

The Competition

Rich Harden gets the ball against Ryan Glynn, a former Ranger making his first major league appearance since 2001, in about two minutes. Put this all together: Glynn hasn't sniffed the majors in almost three years, he's got a career ERA of 6.42, and he couldn't even hack it with the Rangers, and you've got a recipe for a fun day for the A's offense. Sensible prediction is something like 9-4. Ryan Drese throws against Curt Schilling in the Texas-Boston game, and Schilling will be trying to take the league lead in wins. I say he'll get it, despite Drese being the Rangers's ace, as the Red Sox win 5-2. Finally, Anaheim faces off against Cleveland in the ESPN Sunday Night game, with John Lackey pitching against Jake Westbrook. Lackey has the ability to be very bad and Westbrook can be really good, especially when he's getting a lot of ground balls. That doesn't mean Lackey will be bad, or that Westbrook will be good, but since these predictions are as much about hope and faith as they are about actually making money betting on baseball, I'll take Cleveland 7-3.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 14:08 | |

How about Nick Swisher? The man spent all year tearing up AAA, ripping homers and doubles and walking like a mad man, making him a serious prospect despite a ~.260 batting average, so the A's give him a call-up when September rolls around. Not only that, but in the first game he'll be involved he sees in the majors, Ted Lilly is starting, so the A's would like to sit Mark Kotsay, especially since he's been having some minor knee owies. This means that Eric Byrnes will play center and Bobby Kielty will move into left, except that Erubiel Durazo has to sit out with a sore back, so Kielty moves to DH and, since the other reserve outfielder, Billy McMillon, is also a bit useless against lefties, Nick Swisher is inserted in the starting lineup in left field. According to the game recap, getting into the lineup in his first day in the majors got Swisher fined $100 by the A's Kangaroo Court. Getting into the lineup his first day also provided a boost for the A's offense, though, as Swisher walked in his first plate appearance, and added a double and walk later on. Those walks aren't a surprise to anyone who's been watching, and it appears the A's major leaguers have been watching and waiting as well: Swisher was also fined $100 for getting called up solely because he works the count. All of this, along with a Bobby Kielty homer off the man he was traded for, was in support of Tim Hudson, who didn't have his best day, giving up four runs in seven innings, but it was good enough to win, since Lilly had a worse day, giving up five in six innings. The A's bullpen also outpitched the Blue Jays's, with Arthur Rhodes and Octavio Dotel each pitching scoreless innings, while Justin Speier gave up two insurance runs to the A's in the top of the ninth. This win was the A's 80th, against 54 losses, of the year, and this is the second earliest the A's have reached 80 wins in their now five year run of great baseball, trailing only the 2002 season, when they had just 51 losses at the 80-win mark, and didn't get their 54th loss until they already had 91 wins.

The Competition

My lesson learned from yesterday's predictions is "never undestimate Pedro Martinez." The still-brilliant Red Sox ace threw seven shutout innings against the Rangers and the potent Boston bullpen, including Keith Foulke at the end of the line, kept the Angels off the board the rest of the way. John Wasdin had a nice game for Texas, allowing just two runs, both on solo homers, in 6.1 innings, and the Rangers bullpen similarly threw shutout frames after him. As extreme as Tim Hudson's ground ball tendencies can be, check out John Wasdin: three ground outs, 16 fly outs. That's a recipe for disaster, and would go a long way toward explaining his 6.48 ERA. Anaheim shook off their malaise and whomped up on Cleveland, 10-5 (so I called the Indians's score correctly). I called Elarton for six innings and four runs, when he actually gave up six runs in six innings, but it was the bullpen that blew the game open, as predicted, as Jeremy Guthrie allowed two runs in his 1/3 of an inning, and Rafael Betancourt gave up two insurance runs in the ninth, making Troy Percival's ninth-inning appearance a non-save one. Thus Anaheim remains four games behind Oakland, still on the fringes of the race, and 4.5 behind Boston. Texas's five-game slide has taken them to 6.5 games out of first place, and, in all likelihood, truly out of the race. I'll continue to update on their progress, because youneverknow, but they're dead.

Today

Texas is at Boston again today in an afternoon game that starts in about an hour, with big rookie Chris Young facing Tim Wakefield. Pitching is still Texas's weakness, and it'll sink them here: 8-3, Boston. The second game of the Anaheim-Cleveland series has Jarrod Washburn pitching against Jason Davis. Davis has had a terrible year and Washburn hasn't been all that much better. Still, bad beats terrible, especially since the inevitable bullpen battle that this one will become favors the Angels, so Anaheim wins again, 8-6. Oakland sends Mark Mulder against the guy who was supposed to be the savior of the Toronto staff, Miguel Batista. The Toronto hurler has been just mediocre, and you have to start wondering whether 2003 in Arizona represented a late career year. Mulder has, of course, been very good, but he's been in a major decline recently, so his performance can't really be predicted to any degree of accuracy these days. I'll say A's win 6-5, which is pretty much my way of saying it's a toss-up.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 13:34 | |

I finally got to see an A's win on TV last night. It seems like every time they're on national television, I'm unavailable. And when I can watch, they lose. Like in the playoffs. Yesterday afternoon, though, Mark Redman had only one tough inning, compounded by a missed cutoff man on an Eric Byrnes throw, but he kept the damage from getting out of control, allowing two runs after having runners on second and third with no outs, as each runner scored on a sac fly. Since the A's had scored three in the top half of the inning, powered by a two-run homer by Billy McMillon, the A's still held the lead after Chicago's outburst. Redman gave up nothing the rest of the way. Redman is a funny pitcher to watch work because, as David Justice kept pointing out, when you face him, you're going to get balls out over the plate that you'll be able to hit. How on earth does it happen that Redman has an ERA less than six (4.50, to be exact) while throwing 82 mph pitches out over the plate all day? I can't explain how he did it with the Twins, Tigers, and Marlins, but with the A's, he relies on that excellent defense that Billy Beane has put together. I think everyone but Mark Kotsay and Eric Byrnes made a really nice play at some point or another. Billy McMillon had a running catch on a ball above his head in left field. I can't remember what Bobby Crosby did, but I'm sure he did something. Marco Scutaro went deep up the middle, lept into the air, spinning as he went, and uncorked a throw to first to just miss getting the runner. Scott Hatteberg had at least two nice scoops and also a diving stop in the 43 hole. Eric Chavez had the play of the day, though. He dived to stop a ball hit to his left, rolled over while transferring the ball from his glove to his throwing hand, and then, unable to get to his feet or even knees in time, threw the ball across the diamond accurately and strongly enough to get the out while sitting on his bum. I figure he was about fifteen feet from third base, but pretty squarely in the 2nd-3rd baseline, so, using the Pythagorean Theorem, that's a (90^2 + 75^2)^(1/2) foot throw. My calculator tells me that's 117 feet. Now, you go sit on your bum with a baseball and make a strong, accurate, 117 foot throw. That's why Eric Chavez will probably win the Gold Glove every year until he doesn't want it anymore. I'm not sure that Alex Rodriguez isn't already a better all around third baseman than Chavez is, but I don't know if I can give a "best third baseman" award to a guy who seems to have trouble with every foul pop up hit his direction. Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon? It seems that every time I watch a Yankee game (and that's fairly often, since I live in the city and get YES), there's a foul pop on the third base side that Rodriguez circles under, bobbing and weaving like Ali, before finally making some kind of lunging catch just as the ball gets to him. It's a disaster waiting to happen. Anyway, the A's other run in the third inning came with Marco Scutaro on second and Eric Byrnes on first and Eric Chavez at the plate. Contreras threw a splitter that caught a lot more dirt than it did plate. Davis went down to block it, but it took a funny hop and skittered past him, though he did get a piece of it. Having touched it, he first thought the ball was in front of him, but couldn't find it. Only after frantically looking around did he realize that he had to sprint to the backstop, to retrieve the ball. By this time, Marco Scutaro had passed third and was motoring for the plate. He came home with a textbook "wild pitch slide" (body facing the infield, arms up to protect the face from a possible throw), but Davis had no play on him.

The Competition

The A's had another good day with regard to their Western competition. The Angels scored all the runs I predicted them for (three), while the Red Sox only halved their predicted total (four in real life, eight predicted), but it was good enough to win. The last run in the game was scored in the bottom of the third, but Bartolo Colon couldn't get out of the fifth. He had another Colon-like line, giving up four runs on ten hits in 4.2 innings. The bullpen nearly saved his bacon, throwing the next 3.1 innings without giving up a run, but it was already too late, as Derek Lowe was on his game, striking out six and getting eleven ground ball outs. Boston, then, remains half a game ahead of the A's, while the Angels find themselves four games back of Oakland. That four game mark is dangerous territory, as I've already mentioned for Texas. The Rangers, meanwhile, were supposed to avoid a sweep in Minnesota, but, while Kenny Rogers did pitch well, Brad Radke had a phenomenal game: eight innings, five hits (just one for extra bases), one walk, nine strikeouts, and no runs. Thus have the Rangers fallen five and a half games behind the A's.

Today

And guess where Texas has to go next? That's right, to Boston. John Wasdin (former Athletic!) faces off against Pedro Martinez. You can guess who I'm calling in this game. Red Sox win, 8-4. Anaheim moves on to Cleveland, who, while they've fallen out of the playoff hunt, had a surprising run earlier in the year, reminding me a lot of the A's in 1999, the year before they were supposed to be ready to make a run, but made a run anyway that, while it eventually fell short, did impress a lot of people. I'm not saying Cleveland is necessarily going to make the playoffs four years running starting next year, but, especially in that division, it's certainly possible. At the very least, the Twins and Indians will have some battles like the A's and Mariners did over the past few years, with the White Sox hanging on like the Angels, maybe having one miracle year, but generally just playing adequate baseball. Anyway, Kelvim Escobar goes against reclamation project Scott Elarton, who has pretty successfully been reclaimed by the Indians. He's got a 4.70 ERA and is striking out seven guys per nine innings, which is pretty much all you can ask from a guy who has used the phrase "revive [my] career" at some point. He's even coming off a shutout of the White Sox in his last start, so he's riding a bit of a high. Kelvim Escobar, though, has been an actually good pitcher, not a guy who's mediocre performance can be called good in light of other circumstances. The two pitchers look evenly matched, though, because the Cleveland offensive edge overcomes Escobar's pitching edge. On the other hand, are the Angels bad enough to lose four in a row? I don't think I can predict that for them. Anaheim wins 7-5, beating Cleveland's bullpen after Scott Elarton has a six-inning, four-run performance. Finally, Oakland goes to Toronto. This really should have been a tough matchup, but Toronto simply never got on track. That said, they've got the promising kids (Gabe Gross and Alex Rios, in particular) starting and Ted Lilly on the mound in this game, so this is no giveaway. Tim Hudson, though, can throw the kind of game that can make rookies look silly, while Lilly's last five outings have included a rough one, two mediocre ones, and two good ones, while Hudson seems to be returning to his ace form after his injury, so I'll take the A's, as usual, 4-2, with a strong upset warning.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 12:07 | |

The A's finally lost a game, and in crummy fashion: after leading all day, Barry Zito, Chad Bradford, and Jim Mecir conspired to allow a three-run seventh inning that tied the game for the White Sox (all the runs were charged to Zito, but Mecir received a blown save). Justin Duchscherer then gave up a run in the bottom of the ninth to lose it. Jason Grilli did a better job than I thought he would, allowing four runs in six innings, though he put fourteen men on base via ten hits, three walks, and a hit batter. Despite only eight ground ball outs all day, though, the A's hit into three double plays, which really just sounds like bad luck. Barry Zito continued to be plagued by big inning syndrome. Often, that big inning has come early, contributing to his early exits, but this time out, he shut down the White Sox for six innings before getting knocked around a little bit. His peripheral numbers look good, though: just one extra base hit allowed to go with one walk and six strikeouts. In fact, the first run the White Sox scored came on a fielder's choice grounder when, apparently, Aaron Rowand beat the throw to first for the double play that would have nullified the plating of Jamie Burke. On the other hand, the A's fourth run came when Eric Chavez hit into a first-and-third-no-out double play that scored Mark Kotsay, and their first run came on Eric Byrnes's bases-loaded beaning. The worst thing about that big seventh inning for the Sox is that the scoring all came with two outs. The first two batters reached base, but then Zito got two outs before allowing a base hit. That hit brought on Chad Bradford, who gave up a hit allowing an inherited run to score, so Jim Mecir came in and gave up another single allowing another inherited runner to come home before Carlos Lee finally made the last out. Clearly, Zito could have had a little more help from his bullpen in this game, though it was trouble of his own making, certainly.

The Competition

As mentioned above, the A's main competition, Texas and Anaheim, both lost yesterday as well, so Oakland doesn't lose any of their West lead. I had the spirit of things right when I guessed 9-6 Red Sox, but the final score actually ended up 12-7. Aaron Sele and Bronson Arroyo pitched predictably and neither lasted four innings. Sele pitched worse, but, more importantly, he also had worse bullpen support, as Scot Shields followed him and gave up five runs over two innings, while, of the five Boston pitchers who came after Arroyo, only Mike Timlin gave up anything to the Angels. As fast as Chone Figgins is, and he's stolen 27 bases this year, why on earth has he been caught stealing 12 times, including once in this game? He's 26, so if he hasn't learned to steal yet, he's probably never going to. It's probably time for Mike Scioscia to stop being enamored of his speed and realize that he's not stealing intelligently. No more green lights for Chone. I should have stuck with my original Minnesota-Texas prediction of 5-2, Twins, but I was seduced by the idea of dead guys pitching against each other. The zombies pitched well, though, each allowing two runs on eight hits and turning the game over to the bullpen. Thankfully for the A's, when the team you're rooting for has Jesse Crain and Joe Nathan going, you've got a good shot of going home happy. Crain and Nathan stopped the Rangers attack, allowing just one base runner, a walk by Nathan, while Francisco Cordero allowed the tie-breaking runs to come home for the Twins, earning his first loss this year. The only change with regard to the A's is that Boston now has the second-best record in the American League, giving them an edge on the A's should Oakland fall out of first place in the West down the stretch. Just because it hasn't happened before doesn't mean it can't in the future.

Today

The A's and White Sox finish their series today in the ESPN day game, so I'll be all over that. Mark Redman goes for the A's against Jose Contreras. The Cuban has had a good run for the White Sox since being traded by the Yankees, having just one bad game when he allowed five runs in five innings with the help of seven walks. He's been getting strikeouts and ground balls, though, so he's been effective. Mark Redman is coming off one of his periodic disastrous outings, allowing six runs in just two innings to the Devil Rays. This is a worrisome matchup in my mind. Redman could be brilliant, but he's more likely to be mediocre, and he's allowed right-handed batters to slug nearly .500 against him this year, so Chicago's lineup scares me a little. Contreras, meanwhile, neutralizes lefties, who he's actually faced more of this year, to the tune of .231/.311/.379. And that's after spending most of the year with the Yankee outfield behind him. And it's not like right-handers crush him, either. They've hit for good power, posting a .234 ISO, but neither split paints the ugly picture that Redman's do. For the first time all year (of course, I've only been doing this for about ten days), I'm going to predict an A's loss, 7-4. Bartolo Colon pitches against Derek Lowe in a matchup of "guys who are supposed to better than this." Colon seems to be pitching a little better in the last month or two, but he's still all over the place. Lowe, on the other hand, has allowed more than four runs just once in his last ten starts. Of course, he's also allowed fewer than four just twice. He's being consistent, though, which the Red Sox can handle, even if it is consistent mediocrity, because their offense can make up for mediocrity, which they've shown by winning seven of those last ten games (including the one game in which Lowe gave up five runs). So long as Lowe continues to get those ground balls (he's had double digit ground balls in eight of his last ten starts), he should be ok against the Angels. 8-3, Red Sox, for a sweep. Texas and Minnesota finish up with Kenny Rogers pitching against Brad Radke. It seems like both guys have been around forever and, really, they have: Rogers is in his 17th season and Radke is in his 11th. The Twin is having the better year, despite Rogers's fifteen wins and Radke's nine-run blowup in his last start. That said, Rogers has been pretty decent this year, and you can never underestimate the power of a Gold Glove pitcher on the hill. Or something. I'll take Texas to narrowly avoid a sweep, winning 5-4.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 10:45 | |