Being broadcast free on NBC in the Bay Area and on mlb.com everywhere.
Crisp (CF)
Lowrie (SS)
Young (RF)
Cespedes (LF)
Donaldson (3B)
Norris (C)
Freiman (1B)
Smith (DH)
Sizemore (2B)
+
Griffin
—
Pagan (CF)
Scutaro (2B)
Sandoval (DH)
Posey (C)
Pence (RF)
Belt (1B)
Crawford (SS)
Blanco (LF)
Noonan (3B)
+
Zito
Furious comeback by Michigan to tie Kansas and head to overtime. Out friend bed is no doubt on the edge of his seat, hands clenched with excitement and/or fear.
This is a fun game.
Well, I have to say I didn’t enjoy it all that much.
I can imagine. That was quite a collapse.
When we had them by 10 with 2 minutes to go I’ll admit I was feeling pretty good about things. That’s basketball…it often comes down to the final two minutes.
Burke started hitting ridiculous threes from 25′ or further. Those teams play a five or seven game series and KU wins.
I guess that’s the beauty of one and done…I’m still in shock right now.
I know exactly how you’re feelin, brother. Those years when your team’s a legit title contender make for a really tough loss to swallow.
I’ve already gotten three phone calls from KU friends…not a happy time in Jayhawk land right not.
This epidemic of free timeouts while the refs stare at a video screen needs to stop. Coaches have too many timeouts as it is.
Yes. Both for tiny clock adjustments and for degrees of flagrency analysis. Quite annoying.
I see good things if Lowrie and Young stay healthy.
Sandoval’s uniform looks tighter than usual.
Balls
“Stranded on deck” might be one of the dumbest things I’ve heard.
Their color guy says nothing but tired baseball cliches some of which he’s made up himself. That’s all he says. How can people listen to him?
He’s relentlessly positive about their team. People like that.
Giants fans like sycophant homers who speak in awful, tired cliches. Got it.
I think Krukow’s actually not bad as an analyst, but the schtick does reach intolerable at times.
I haven’t heard enough of him to have an opinion…I don’t watch Giants games.
It’s the fact that he is always stretching for ways to compliment Giant players that drives me nuts.
Agreed, he’s very wholesome.
In his defense he doesn’t degrade/ belittle the A’s like many oppo sportscasters.
“It hasn’t been called a strike yet, but he’s got that pitch dialed in”
WTF
i like him
I can’t say this has been my favorite day ever.
What’s wrong?
A certain Midwest college has this basketball team that likes to break my heart from time to time.
That would be James Spaders b-day right?
If by James Spaders’ birthday you mean Phil Collins’ birthday then yes, that would be my favorite day.
B’doom b’doom bdoom b’doom doom doom!
I made sure to play the air drums version as you posted this.
Interested to see how our Fremen does, does he know the weirding way?
Weird zone tonight.
Muggy
Our first muggy of the year…I guess that means it’s time to play baseball.
It’s the Rally Muggy!
I’m relying on all of you for updates on tonight’s game until I can go home.
10:38 on, not just a Friday, but a pseudo-holiday Friday? Damn.
That’s the beauty of working in a 24 hour newsroom, I guess.
Sandoval’s fat. Freiman’s tall. Posey’s rich.
That’s it so far.
Griffin making Giants look foolish.
Yup, love it.
Would have been even better if Sizemore hadn’t bobbled the play.
Matt Flynn…just kill me now.
I mean seriously am I going to get one great Raiders quarterback in my entire life? I’m closing in on 40 and I haven’t seen one yet.
If your standard of great is “one of the 3 best in the NFL at the time” then sure, you’re right, but fans of most franchises are in that boat or close. I’m perfectly happy with Plunketts and Gannons if we have a top notch defense and a star WR or RB or two.
I love Plunkett…he really wasn’t that good. He had great moments but he never even started a full season for the Raiders. Gannon was really good but only for a short time. With the way the game is going defense and running backs are getting to be less and less important.
After yestrday’s decision you can brag about Montana/Young, a pretty good Garcia, and now Kaep. Don’t worry. Be happy.
I used to dream about that left handed gunslinger Young playing for the Raiders. Instead our lefty was Todd Marinovich.
I’ve told my dad many times that I’d have more hair if he had raised me to be a 49ers fan.
Just as a hitter who do you like more Smith or Moss?
I only get to lisp w/ Theth.
I have more faith in Smith not to turn into a complete flash in the pan.
this. But I also would take moss
Going to be a lot of sad fans in SF when Belt comes down to earth this season.
I can’t say I’m a fan of the elephant logo hats.
Really, I like em.
Way better than the sunglasses one.
of course they are better than the sunglasses one. They are still way too busy, also theyre not very hinpster.
They’re awesome.
Griffin looks goooooood.
So what happens to Barton now?
Pool boy?
He only works the shallow end though.
Don’t we all, in our own ways?
I like to live in the deep end myself.
Heh
LOL, is it waivers?
we have ten days to try to trade him. At some point he gets put on waivers during that period. If he is claimed that team must honor his contract and cannot send him to the minors without DFAing him and reexposing him to waivers.
So Ramon got cut and Miggy got a roster spot today.
So I see Robin Williams is at the “I’ll do a Snickers commercial” portion of his career.
Coincidentally, I’m at the “I’ll eat a Snickers” part of my digestive cycle today.
I’m at the “why the fk did I eat that cake and that other cake with additional frosting added on top after a hotdog” part of my horribly bloatedness of the today.
ew
That one looked good to me.
Wow – never seen the catcher’s throw back to the pitcher hit the batter’s bat before. What’s the rule on that?
Ibanez?
In Babe Ruth league as a catcher once my throw back hit the lefty batter right in the helmet at point blank range.
You played with Victorino?!
WOO NORRIS!
I could get used to that!
That’s a quality throw right there.
Although, I don’t recall hearing “DeNo” (rhymes with Reno) before, but Vince used it on that play. Not sure I like that one.
he used it last year. its ok
Fosse called it a hall of fame throw
LOL
Okay A’s, let’s make it exciting here.,
I hate parking there but that is a beautiful ballpark.
Horribly overrated.
The announcer just said Zito pitched a lot of games in the A’s uniform…gee thanks for the info.
So who do you folks hate more the Angels or the Giants?
Giants. Angels aren’t even my #2.
Ooh, tough one. For most of my years the answer has been Angels pretty decisively, but these last few years have really piqued my Giants bile.
Giants. I don’t feel good about it, but in my heart I know it to be true.
Used to be Angels but Giants because of the (bandwagon)fans.
this
Same here
Angels.
Angels Bloggers
Giants Fans
Giants
Angels
Angels fans
Giants bloggers
Great list!
Nailed it.
I’d swap the Angels and Giants in there, but otherwise I think you’re onto something.
It’s make a good R/L lineup
You know, you’re right, because C.J. Wilson.
Quite right!
I agree, except above Angels bloggers, I’d put Gnats ownership group.
(edit: two typos in 11 words = FAIL)
ONly Two in elven words? Winnwer
#dfa
This is not accurate. Ed is the king of typo related spelling/capitalization errors. I make honest errors about not properly spelling the words where Ed is merely a poor typist.
Heh!
That last sentence could very well be tagline material.
Yeah, no. You typo all the time. More often than Ed. It’s just that when Ed does it, he REALLY does it.
its a poor typist that blames his something something
Go crazy? Don’t mind if I do!!!!
That guy and Sandoval are dinner pals right?
Heh
Just hit it far Derek!
There we go!
Game ending win?…aren’t all wins game ending? This play by play guy is uh…not good.
I really like him actually. And compared to our TV play-by-play guy he’s Vin Scully.
I’ve never heard of him…this is my first exposure and so far it seems like he might be stoned.
I think they said he’s been off calling college basketball and this is his first game back. Might be a little rusty.
That’s quite possible…like I said I don’t watch Giants games so I don’t know much about their announcers outside of Jon Miller who did all those ESPN games for years.
Marco! Still an A at heart.
Hee
“If he makes a grab on this, I think they have a chance to get him.” No, Kruk, he was safe by a lot no matter what.
Was that really a strike?
Bruce Bochy apparently invented the idea of not making outs.
Nice play by Jed.
Yup, followed by ‘don’t hurt yourself’.
It would appear that scruffy is the new Major League look.
Reddick is hoping it becomes “homeless”
He’s a trendsetter than one.
Heh, yeah not working to well on him, I think its because his hair gets all greasy in back, I always think -wet muskrat.
This feels like a real game, I love baseball.
So much this.
Well, they do have some good IF D.
Sometimes i wonder what would have happened if we would have started Scutaro regularly, he for sure would have been cheap enough.
Was is because of the Wonder Boy Crosby and MaEl?
Sweeeeeeeeeet
Watching Pence bat makes me want to vomit.
He resembles a young Cheers-era Woody Harrelson at times, looks as dumb too.
this.
Is there any group of human beings who spit more than baseball players?
Rodeo folk?
I wouldn’t know…I’m too preppy for the rodeo.
Sounds like a song.
I was in a safety meeting with a company manager who was chewing dip the whole time. Kept spitting it into a coke bottle. Soooo fking gross.
Ugly play by Young there.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but the outfield seems to be playing too far in.
On the Young play, definitely.
Though right field is the funkiest part of WWP.
Ugh…
Okay time to get the out.
Is Andre the Giant our new first baseman?
These pitches he throws right down the middle and straight are less than successful.
A bit of BP to be sure, always good to get out of your own jambs though IMO.
Might be a good time to throw a ball on the field by mistake.
EVen after all that Griffin still has a pretty nice line.
He looked good except for the last inning.
Zito –> Gaudin, oddly familiar…
I’m having some my Jayhawks just crushed my soul cheesecake.
So according to these guys Zito is the best bunter among the pitchers…well, I guess he was worth all that money then.
M O J O
Pitch count = Maximum fastball velocity + 10 => Time to go.
It’s fine with me that we basically saved the annual pounding of Zito for the regular season.
GP!
He beat us last year. Maybe the low point of the season for me.
The Willingham home run off Fuentes was rock-bottom.
Chad Gaudin is the classic Brian Sabean find?!
Hey…Chad Gaudin is still alive.
Have we seen a pitch thrown over 90 tonight?
That last was 93 (allegedly)
I guess Gaudin throws more heat than I remember.
I like that!
Buster Posey seems to have no personality.
Hey, let’s see the chubby guy get some ice cream.
That little girl in the blue top seems to be having fun.
You’ve just been…Gaudinstruck!
Hrm…
So how would the game change if empty bases were pushed along with a walk – so 1st and 3rd would score?
Stealing would obviously become much more important – any guesses at (or better yet, ability to calculate) what the the current 70%-ish success threshold would drop to?
Intentional walks would drop. You could put protection (high OBP + steals) in front of the IBB-target.
And Eddie Gaedel-like pinch hitters would be back in vogue.
Uh…4?
Huh, hard to say as it’d be a fundamental change in strategy, but hard throwing catchers would have even more value.
The current run expectancy matrix row for 1st+2nd and 0, 1 and 2 outs respectively is about (1.57, 0.97, 0.47); for 1st+3rd it is (1.90, 1.25, 0.54).
The current break-even points in this situation are 78%, 69% and 88%, reflecting the extra risk inherent in stealing with 0 outs (since there are lots of chances to be driven in) or even worse 2 outs (don’t make the 3rd out at 3rd).
0.78*1.57/1.90 = 0.64
0.69*0.97/1.25 = 0.54
0.88*0.47/0.54 = 0.77
so that’s an 11-14% drop.
Cool, so is this assuming the ‘ghost runner’ could still be a force out?
I was only thinking of walks; I don’t think you can add a ghost runner on hits or steals, since both outcomes (2nd+run or 2nd+3rd) are currently possible.
Ah gotcha, I think I took a few more steps than your original proposal.
It’s been interesting watching this game compared to the KU game tonight. I was up pacing, cursing and sweating during one game and for the other game I’m eating cheesecake and relaxing.
Had anyone ever heard the surname Resop? It just looks fake. Even if it wasn’t Poser spelled backwards I think I would find it suspicious.
Resop was my fourth wife’s name.
I thought that was Aesop.
Even more suspicious, it’s the Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program in Ontario.
Maybe he’s a fugitive from justice and made up a new name to stay hidden. That would explain why he came to Oakland.
I sure wish their catcher played on our team.
AGREED
I can’t remember…did Smith log anytime at 1B last year?
What in the world is the Esquire Network?
It sounds like somebody got sick of Lifetime and Oxygen and decided to retaliate.
It’s war!
I don’t know who that batter was but that was a pretty lousy at bat.
Well, Lopez made that look easy.
Looking at the numbers it looks like Donaldson has had a nice spring…it would be a huge plus if he can have a solid season so Jed could go full time at 2B or SS.
ZiPS doesn’t like him offensively (.289 wOBA oof…) but all the predictors like his fielding.
I’m not big on ZiPS…I can only go by what I’ve read on Grantland using their numbers but so far I haven’t seen them show any starting hitter have over a .300 BA…that seems unlikely to me.
It’s stingy for sure, but it’s been the most ‘accurate’ for predicting offense of all the metrics so far.
I won’t pretend to know much about the subject. Like I said I was just struck by how low many of the numbers were.
Here’s a good easy explanation of the field.
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/the-projection-rundown-the-basics-on-marcels-zips-cairo-oliver-and-the-rest/
Thanks for the link…I’ll give it a read this weekend.
Hmm…if this was a regular season game would Bob be making the switch here?
No chance.
Yeah, I wouldn’t think so…it worked out though.
Wouldn’t it be fun to get to manage a Major League game?
Well, that was different.
Who is your least favorite player to play for one of the teams you love?
Bill Romanowski for me…guy was a total prick no matter the uniform.
great choice. i hate hearing him on the radio
Hey! Here’s an area Broncos fans and Raiders fans can agree on!
and 49ers fans
Recently, Brian Fuentes, Bobby Crosby and Terrence Long come to mind. All-time maybe Dave Kingman? Christ, what an asshole.
I liked Kingman as a little when he was on the A’s but yeah, as I’ve gotten older and read about him he was an asshole.
Louis Suarez.
Kenny Rogers.
This is who I was going to say.
He behaved pretty well in Oakland outside of that one fight with Jason McDonald.
Well, to be fair who didn’t get into a fight with Jason McDonald?
In a related note who is Jason McDonald?
Centerfielder most famous for nearly killing himself on the field by diving headfirst into Rickey’s knee and for getting punched in the face by The Gambler in a hotel elevator.
Seriously if you wear a hat like that to the park you’re a Bill Romanowski.
So I’ve missed something, Casilla is good now?
he was good when we had him
The only thing I enjoyed from tonight’s KU game was the announcer said one of the Michigan players showed great leadership by making a free throw…seriously, go fuck yourself.
Who was that, the winner of the season ticket holders’ plate-appearance-in-exhibition-game raffle?
Well they know how to play their ballpark.
Nice to hear the Oakland chants
Gentlepeople, I had a second beer tonight and I think I’m a little tipsy.
Are you on any meds too?
Nope…I don’t think I’ll need NyQuil tonight either…getting sleepy…
Remote hypnosis is a powerful tool.
Are you going to try to take advantage of me?
C’mere sweet thing, I’ve got a Thomas Sowell book I want to show you.
Well that non-strike with runners on 1st and 3rd is kind of a big deal now.
We can still do this!
Moneyball misconstrued again.
It’s not that OBP was key in and of itself, but entirely that it was undervalued.
Are you talking about that book that Beane wrote about hating stolen
basesbabies?Fixed that for you.
No, Bean wrote the book about being gay.
Oh well
The tall first baseman appears to have a long swing.
Observations around ATT from last night:
1) green grass is pretty
2) while standing in line for food, a very drunk person turned around and ask AV and I if we were A’s fans, told us how the giants rule and that the giants are the best. By the end of the night, he would be in police custody.
3) a woman jumped into the Giants dugout. the giants themselves scattered, it took two security guards about 2 minutes to subdue her. To be fair, while the giants were running away from the woman in th edugout, Angel pagan casually walked over for some gatorade. (Reported to me by AV with binoculars)
4) after Griffin prevented the giants from scoring following an inning where the A’s scored, we felt that AJ showed confidence with that shut down inning. So we drank out makers.
5) Walking into a stadium with visiting gear on is a god way to get people to ask you for the 2002 Barry bonds bobble that was handed to you by an unhappy stadium worker
6)being in the third deck is really far from the field.
2. He could be your client come Monday!
3. I have long thought that if a terrorist wanted a reachable target that would get massive worldwide attention, a guy with explosives jumping into a dugout would be very hard to stop.
5. More details please…was the worker unhappiness manifested by giving stuff to A’s fans? And what did you do with it?
2. was odd, because we were walking out of the stadium and the guy was handcuffed on the ground surrounded by cops pleading something with them
5. I am unsure of the source of her disgruntledness was. she was opening boxes and telling people that they were not getting anything from her because they went to a different turnstile. She shoved the barry bonds bobble in my hands without really looking at me, I am not sure what happened with av.
the barry bonds bobbles are going to the ticket holder who gave me the tickets in the first place.
your 6th point might have been that sandoval scratched the star of david in the dirt behind the batter’s box before his first at bat.
and then stood on it after a pitch as if he were hitting his spot
i’m still having trouble googling an explanation.
Ha, thats awesome.
Star of David, or pentagram?
star of david. no doubt about it
Kabbalistic dark magic is my only theory.
Coded message to a hot dog dealer. 6 kosher with everything. Deliver to dugout.
we answer to a higher authority
heh heh
im pretty sure we rep that unhappy stadium worker.
also how was i not invited to this?
A comes before B in my phone
How was aardvark not invited to this?
Im going to file a grievance.