Opponent: Nobody at all
Starting pitchers: See above
First pitch: Good lord, pay attention

A's in the West: Second place, 2 1/2 games behind Texas, 12 ahead of Seattle
A's in the Wild Card: Second Wild Card, 1 1/2 games behind Tampa Bay, 2 1/2 games ahead of Cleveland
Baseball Prospectus playoff odds: 24 percent division, 43 percent Wild Card

You know what you don't care about? My progress in video games and in fantasy. But you know what's awful? How the A's just keep on losing and keep on losing and keep on losing. Brandon Moss hit his 20th homer of the year, but A.J. Griffin gave up two of his own while also walking four people (a point in the column against "he's trading the walks for the homers," I guess, and a point in the column for "he's just not that good and please Brett Anderson come back"), so there's not much to say.

I did get a cool cloak in Angband last night. It provides protection from the elements, though this asshole monster partially disenchanted it. It's this one: The Cloak 'Colluin' [1,+15].

I have a team in a daily head-to-head points-based fantasy league. That team is named the Oakland Ghost Riders. That team has lost something like five of its last six, and clings to first place in its division by a mere game with 14 to play, despite having a stretch as the most dominant team in the league and currently standing at second in overall points. And it just lost Joe Mauer to a concussion. Yuck.

See how much fun that was?

Oh, you want some real baseball? Fine.

Among second basemen, minimum 300 plate appearances, Eric Sogard ranks 12th of 26 in True Average (which, as you'll recall from prior blog posts, but maybe you're new here, is an offensive-value rate stat that properly weights all the offensive events and adjusts for park and league). He's hit better than Brandon Phillips, Dan Uggla, Jedd Gyorko, Dan Murphy, Jose Altuve, Rickie Weeks, and Dustin Ackley. Also Darwin Barney.

Who needs Jemile Weeks?

Bob Melvin is upset, which is rare.

With a runner on third and fewer than two outs, per Baseball-Reference, a situation the A's have had 257 times this year, the A's are hitting .331/.400/.478, which is 45 percent better than the team's overall hitting and 14 percent better than the league (by OPS+). There's no such thing as "due" but if that performance was your baseline, your expectation for how things would continue going forward, you were bound to wind up disappointed.

This is an amusing one from Wishinsky about Mike Scioscia and Grant Green and sacrifice bunting.

Prediction: A's win.