Coco not on the DL but not at the park, off getting an MRI. The lineup vs. Brett Oberholtzer is:
Lowrie SS, Vogt 1B, Cespedes CF, Donaldson 3B, Norris C, Moss LF, Callaspo DH, Reddick RF, Punto 2B. Chavez P.
If Billy Burns makes his debut tonight, let’s hope he has a better experience than Walt Weiss, who was inserted as a pinch-runner as the potential tying run in the 9th inning and was quickly picked off.
So anyway, LAAA ain’t winning tonight.
So how about them A’s?
i don’t know about you, but i like ’em.
That was awkward.
Donaldson didn’t think there was any way Gallego would send him.
Anything other than an absolutely horrible throw gets him by 10 feet. Luckily, these are the Astros.
Is Burns there yet?
Callaspo looks like he lost some weight while on the DL…
I feel like Reddick will hit a HR this game.
I feel like ice cream.
Maybe if you go get some ice cream Reddick will hit a HR.
Sounds like a win-win.
This park looks like an airplane hangar.
Have you ever been to Chase Field in Phoenix? That’s a common look.
I enjoyed my only visit to what was then called Enron Field. The game featured a brutal collision between the Reds’ Dmitri Young and Donnie Sadler (I did not enjoy that part), but in general, the atmosphere of the park was lively, the people friendly, and the game was fast. Of course, in those days the Astros were actually good, so that helped a lot.
I’ll try to do an Arlington/Houston swing with the A’s sometime in the next couple of years…probably not in late July though.
I feel like I’d like Astros fans a lot more than Rangers fans.
wait 5 years
shut up about charter schools… they suck
HAHAHAHAHAHA ASTROS EVEN LET NICK PUNTO GET A HIT OFF THEM
Thanks, and go As.
Vogt…wow.
When did he turn into Jason Giambi?
I BELIEVE IN STEPHEN VOGT
The Astros might have some issues if major leaguers are whining to the press about Mark Appel playing catch in their park.
Seems like more of the usual “pay your dues” bullshit.
Has anyone seen Boyhood? There’s a scene that was filmed at a real game here. Trying to figure out which game it was.
If anyone cares, this game seems the closest, except that Lane homered to left in the movie not right as it’s reported here.
We agree!
It was Clemens pitching at home in Houston, so that narrows it down to 2004/2005/2006. From this interview with Linklater, I found that the Astros home run was by Jason Lane. That narrows it down to just two games — either June 5, 2005 vs the Cards (HR off Mulder!) or else August 18, 2005 vs the Brewers. I don’t really remember who were the opposing team in the movie, but I’m leaning towards the Brewers. On top of that, there were actually two HR off Mulder in that Cards game (other one was by Morgan Ensberg) but the Linklater interview sounds like there was just one hit in the game.
Also, Ethan Hawke’s character says something like “Learn to hate the Brewers” before they go to the game, which leads me to believe it’s an Astros-Brewers game.
Wow. Kinda harsh on the Brewers. What’s that about?
low-hanging version of fuck the giants.
Jesse kept missing up.
Can I just say, channeling my best ed, that pulled over third base foul is contradictory.
Is it? The ball could pass right over third base and still be foul as long as it didn’t bounce first.
I’m suffering from former-A’s-fatigue
Trogdor’d.
Is that Lew behind the A’s dugout?
did he get hit with a bat?
Uuuuuuuuuuuugh…I’m giving my money to a guy that spends it on supporting charter schools?
Thanks for the charter school promo, Glen.
I feel dirty now having listened to that.
But seriously, good for those schools. Hopefully they’re helping in some way.
There was an extensive discussion of this on radio too. It sounded suspiciously like paid product placement.
It was. Fisher’s foundation.
Now we’re going full infomercial.
The A’s billion dollar owner is the founder of it so they kind of had to.
fischer connection.
meh
yea… how dare him start a school?
Thanks, and go As.
If he wants to support the education system, there are better ways to do it than by funding initiatives which are designed to destroy public education.
uh, ok.
Or I guess it could be appreciated that he spends money on education. I would be that he also pays taxes, so he also supports public education too.
I dunno though
Thanks, and go As.
I would appreciate his spending money on education if he was spending it on something that wasn’t gutting public schools. Charters are part of a large-scale conservative project designed to destroy public spending.
OK. Fischer is evil, whatever.
Thanks, and go As.
Heck, I’m not even sure he’s real…has been seen in public?
He is an abstract idea.
That’s a very ungenerous way to characterize the charter school movement.
I’m a very ungenerous man when it comes to my feelings on conservative approaches to public spending.
That’s not really the point.
well, its his team, its his money, he can make the A’s do an infomercial if he wants.
Sure, its not the best use of education resources. Sure its not helping public education, Sure I disagree with what they are doing.
But my choice is to ignore baseball. Hey, the players the managers and the owners aren’t bleeding heart liberals like me. Well shit, I can’t watch the games or listen to them because of that.
That’s fking dumb
I don’t think anyone here is saying they’re no longer A’s fans because of this. It just sucks.
Wha? No one is saying he’s prohibited from doing it. It’s just kinda yucky. And I’m not even dogmatically anti-charter.
yeah, that was a little strong. Sorry about that.
Headache. Dreading the 10 hours of video I have to watch before thurs.
I suppose my point is, his house his rules. We should just mock the informercial like we are doing
i blame altuve for the extra run
Okay, it’s nice that Fisher is involved with something educational, but this is overkill.
Okay *THIS* is a bit much. Okay. More than a bit much.
It’s even on MLB.tv
Reddick would be less annoying if his ABs were not so f’ing predictable.
Predictably…awesome? Since coming back, Reddick’s line: .381/.391/.667, .444 wOBA, 191 WRC+. How does this guy get shit on even when he’s playing well? Hell, even for the season, he’s the 23rd-best hitting RF in baseball out of 39 with at least 210 PAs. Solidly middle of the pack. And people are talking about him like he’s Nick Punto.
Probably because he’s 34th out of 41 qualified right fielders since 2012. Decidedly not middle of the pack. So people are at the very least understandably wary, if not frustrated.
As is often the case lenscrafters says want I want to say but does it intelligently.
I also recall you (I think it was you) digging up some stat indicating that he’s like the worst hitter of all time with the bases loaded…
I think it was the fangraphs “clutch” measure (WPA – WPA/LI, or something like that).
But that’s not what he said. He was talking about Reddick right now, which is absurd. He’s been having mostly solid at-bats with good results, he’s making strong contact, etc. I don’t have a problem with anyone being wary of Reddick’s hitting. But he’s on a very hot streak right now and people shit on him for making one out? Again, he’s not some world-beating hitter, but he’s also not Nick Punto.
I don’t think anyone was talking about Reddick right now but you.
Aside from the guy to whom I was replying, you mean?
He’s a bad hitter, and he looks even more hopeless than his results. Perfectly fine player though overall.
WPA sums up Reddick’s contributions pretty nicely (and consistently) during his tenure with the A’s.
I made a quick run to the store for the 3rd inning, but from what I have seen, Jesse has looked fantastic.
Shit luck.
That rule needs changed. Should be like when a throw goes out of play, two-base award to all runners.
I don’t like that, but umpires should have discretion.
Don’t do they have discretion? It’s just that they never allow three bases for the runner even on obvious cases like that.
Pretty sure they don’t.
remember the fan interference in Anaheim? Trout would have no doubt scored, but the umpire placed him at 3rd?
Yeah, they are dumb
Yes, I’m confusing GRDs with fan interference. The umpires have discretion on where to place runners on interference but GRDs are always two bases.
When umpires have discretion, bad things happen. See: the strike zone. The goal should be to trust them with as little as possible. I just don’t see how a throw into the dugout is somehow worth two bases, but a ball bouncing over the wall in the outfield, WAY farther from the action, can’t be worth as much.
All runner do get two bases. But it’s two bases from the moment the ball was thrown, not from when it leaves the playing field.
OK, so have it be two bases from the moment the ball landed.
Not our night…
Hmmm, I thought there were 2 outs.
We get another run though if the ball stays in the park, because Vogt had a triple there.
Probably, yes, still frustrating, but not murderously so after they at least got one.
MikeAdamJones
bad hop.
Thanks, and go As.
oh thank god. I was worried that lowrie wouln’t score
Stop walking 9th hitters guys.
Ask nicely and I’ll think about it.
Derek Norrass will save us.
I’m pretty sure I’m beyond saving at this point.
This thread is beyond saving.
It happens.
Waffles or charter schools?
Well, volunteer work of course.
I don’t volunteer. I’m republican.
We should start a GOP Club here on FK. Me, you and Lew Wolff.
Does the charter school have a 96″ TV in the multipurpose room?
I taught at a school in a rich district and a school in a less rich district…there was a wee bit of a difference in equipment.
We didn’t have AC. 100+ degrees and we were in school.
My HS when I went to school didn’t have AC and Sacramento can get a little warm.
And is the butter on the waffles churned by hand by nine year old Amish?
If they want me to send my kids there they damn well better have Amish working the butter.
Ray was about 5 seconds away from reminding the viewing audience that every team plays 162 games.
and of course they play 162 games
Baseball players are players who play the game of baseball in Major League Baseball.
You know what’s funny, the baseball broadcaster who has adopted the NFL tic of always referring to the ball by its full name is none other than Vince Cotroneo.
Vince is NFL ready.
this last AB was one I would like to have tried a bunt
I’m not comfortable with Fosse referring to people younger than me as “X years young.”
dammit jessie
Honestly this isn’t surprising. Jesse’s looked terrible today.
I wonder if he’s hit an innings wall?
well, if he hits an innings chair, we may see milone sooner
Ed.
That would be fine with me…Chavez has had a nice season but perhaps he needs a break.
d/l’d with what doctors say is a boo boo. MRI was inconclusive.
I wish those damn MRI bastards would make up their mind.
Dang it.
Mike Gallego couldn’t have served that one up any better.
You can see the picture of Tommy Milone in Jesse’s thought bubble.
Jeeeeeeezus. That was killed.
Godawful pitches.
WTF
6-3 is bad for this stretch, 5-4 would be terrible.
vince
“you have to get more consistent pitching because you can’t just outscore everyone everyday”
What about confidence. Is it also important.
In baseball you have to score runs because scoring more runs in a baseball game is how you win baseball games in Major League Baseball.
You must be so excited to have a fresh new supply of Dennis Allen quotes coming available.
It’s the thing I’m most looking forward to for the upcoming season.
Dude
Fuck this shit.
Egad, this looks like the other night up in Arlington.
did that go over ralph and brian?
I wonder if throwing a billion innings in the first half is going to catch up to Otero now.
no problem.
six run mojo
You need to say six run A’s mojo, Ed.
It’s still only four runs and we are playing the Astros.
come on Josh. get on base
Would you settle for a fly out?
we get it josh. you are still a valuable baseball player
Bed sees you. Bed don’t care.
Excellent.
where’s the dive there red?
six A’s run mojo.
Where is brian?
i am wondering what music magazine the rest of the A’s run.
and where IS brian??
skid roper still sells records at the PCC record swap.
The Wire is the The Wire of music magazines
yoenis, you woe us 4 runs from friday
Woe is Yoenis for those four runs owed.
Ever so many fly outs today.
I feel like we need a home run here.
still need a HR
Well, here comes Abad.
ken seems off today
this whole thing is off.
where was that last week
Callaspo Reddick and punto will all score on the Stephan vogt triple
callaspo already scored. lowie scores on the triple
Tommy Milone could be the #4 pitcher on most major league teams. Including this one.
Burns on deck
Hot A’s minor-leaguer on minor-leaguer action!
I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment.
Ed’s spelling is suspect enough that I almost thought Byrnes was back.
Oh, I am sure he is on a decksomewhere
Next week for the San Rafael Pacifics.
take till you get three strikes nick
C’mon Bo, use your proven closer!
oh geez. oh geez.
Yeah, well, that’ll be the end of the Black Peter references.
So very frustraying
How about we just pretend none of this happened?
This team may have issues with lefties until at least two of Gentry, Crisp, and Blanks get back.
Good thing we sent Freiman down! Norris and Donaldson were top 5 MLB hitters against LHP last year. This year their OPS’s are 1.026 and 1.073 against LHP specifically. Hm, I wasn’t really expecting that. We at least still have two very solid players against lefties.
More worryingly, Donaldson’s OPS is only .701 against RHP.
Donaldson, Norris, and Cespedes are great against lefties. The issue is that the next best guys are lefties who have done well in a small sample (Vogt, Moss) but have no real proven ability to hit lefties. And after that, it’s down to Lowrie (86 wRC+ against lefties this year) and much worse.
3 hitters + 2 noise + 1 meh + 3 oh shit = AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Lowrie has a career 118 wRC+ against lefties though.
Thanks, and go As.
True, and Callaspo and Punto are both around league average against lefties for their career. But they’ve all been bad to atrocious this year though and I’m tired of waiting for them to rebound given that it’s very hard to project platoon splits for switch hitters. There are some interesting, presumably cheap lefty mashers available especially in the outfield (Gomes, Willingham, Denorfia).
Gomes would literally murder the slegna lefty starters.
It’s nice that the Sox have completely devalued him by throwing him out there against righties this season.
Whats his contract situation? Is he in a bad enough place that a flip of the medical remains of Jim Johnson (with us of course having to take a bunch of $$$) would be a starting point?
5M this year.
Thanks, and go As.
Sox don’t have a need for Johnson. But I can’t imagine he’d cost a lot if they’re in trade Lester mode.
does the abbey road EP know this??!!
red sox. Not tube sox
Yeah, it’s pretty bad that 45% of his PA have been against RHP.
But I also checked his platoon factor for 2012 with Oakland and he still had 40% PA vs RHP then. I realize that RHP are just more common, but my memory was that the A’s did a really good job of platooning Gomes, so I was expecting a lower fraction.
I think they did a good job when the option was avaiable, but were forced into it a lot with theth spending time on the dl or something
They did. He was second in the league in PlatoonPA, which is something I made up and is explained here:
The A’s faced more RHP than an average MLB team and his numbers tilted back towards the more even split, because of the A’s reluctance to pinch-hit for him and the fact that he faced mostly right-handed RP.
Right, I remembered that you did some work on the best way to calculate this, but I was too lazy to look it up.
He would literally murder them? We should probably do what we can to make sure he doesn’t come into contact with them, then. I don’t like the Angels either, but I don’t think their players deserve to be murdered.
even cj wilson?
Nah, couple slaps in the face and he should be fine.
There’d be no stopping him.
Why are there no rumors? My calendar says we have like 2 days and I am not hearing jack squat.
We have been mentioned as inquiring about Lester.
I only assume it will be for JJ and Hammel.
Thanks, and go As.
I mean if it’s for 2 weeks until Gentry is back, then sure.
Thanks, and go As.
Can he play second base?
And Sam Fuld doesn’t count as a rumor.
LOL-saw the Fuld update on Twitter and hadnt had time to respond. Thankm you GM for making me look like Im mad at you or something…
Maybe it’s a gateway for Dozier.
Milone for Scooter Gennett, who says no?
Thanks, and go As.
The Brewers.
That would be fantastic for us, but I can’t see MIL saying yes.
The other question is would you take a chance on Weeks (with no Milone as part of the deal). Defensively he’s awful, but he’s not doing too bad this year offensively.
how
coolgreat would a trade johnson for weeks be?Ha! That would be awesome.
fixed
Which was more implausible, a 6-run 9th or my consecutive scrabble bingos VAGINAS and PENISES?
As great as that is, it would be better if you played penises over vaginas’ “i”
I was cock-blocked.
not sure what the exact position was, but it looks like you coulda butted N to N or just taken it up the S.
Trust me, there was no room for my penises.
I think it’s shorter than you think.
Which was more implausible, a 6-run 9th or your consecutive scrabble bingos VAGINAS and PENISES, while doctorK-ing this thread?
That is a moment that will live in infamy. Only way it could possibly be better is if you were playing with your in-laws (who are Oklahoma religious types) and knew those moments would be how they thought of you for the next several decades.
Heck, I’m still defined by playing “adze” down there once. I can only imagine pulling off brilliance like you did.
There’s that, and then there’s this.