Day game after a long flight back from Tampa. CSNBA helpfully informs that Eric Sogard gets his 40th start of the year today. Sagh.
1. Billy Burns (S) CF
2. Marcus Semien (R) SS
3. Josh Reddick (L) RF
4. Stephen Vogt (L) C
5. Billy Butler (R) DH
6. Max Muncy (L) 3B
7. Mark Canha (R) 1B
8. Sam Fuld (L) LF
9. Eric Sogard (L) 2B
P. Jesse Hahn (1-4, 4.43 ERA)
Ken Korach returns to the pregame show and promptly gets talked over by an effusive Ray Fosse.
"Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
On the pregame show, I just heard Ray Fosse claim Barry Zito has been “pitching great.”
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=zito–001bar
For the A’s, he has been. Meaning he hasn’t pitched a single pitch in the majors which is been pretty great.
With this being the A’s only game all season that’s exclusive to national television, Ray is on radio. I wonder how often I’ll yell STFU RAY AND LET KEN TALK.
Sounds like Ken’s appearances will be irregular and not all that frequent for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, “long way yet to go” etc. Probably won’t be the lead PxP guy today either.
Based on what he told me last week, I’d expect nothing more than the occasional appearance for a long time.
He’s not that old, probably right around 60, but the travel demands of the job are rather onerous for someone who doesn’t have full mobility, so you do start to be concerned about the future beyond this year if this is turning into essentially a permanent disability.
su san sluss er clap clap clap clap clap
He WANTS to come back more than anything else in the world, trust in that. He is bummed that this is this way and told me he is working his ass off to get better, his words. It’s just my interpretation of the (fairly significant) detail he went into about his knee that the biological reality may end up dictating otherwise, not least because traveling is very hard on one leg.
But we’ll see. I just want him to be OK cuz he is my friend… I told him that the game is a bonus for me and if it’s a choice between calling another E-5 clam or popout to first, or retaining a degree of mobility in life, as long as he’s healthy I am OK with him choosing the latter.
I’d settle for just being able to handle home games for the time being. Worry about the rigors of travel later. Just work on getting to the stadium and the booth and back.
Meanwhile local TV viewers will miss the beginning of our game on ESPN in favor of the last two innings of the Yankees v Royals, currently at 14-1.
(It’s starting on ESPN2)
But on Watch ESPN clicking on the A’s game still get you the Yankees.
Story of my life.
Korach gets the opening lineups and the expressed written consent disclaimer before handing it to Vince.
What? no!
The Memorial Day camouflage hat brims are less horrible on the A’s than on the Tigers. The camo uniform numbers and letters are hideous all around.
Concur.
On TV I’m sure they were bad, from the stands (at least from 216) they looked like dark gold letters on white jerseys.
ESPN is keeping the strike zone outline box up for every pitch? (At least for the Yankees game which is all I can see)
Apparently.
They’ve added that on most/all of their telecasts this year.
Seems excessive, but I suppose I’ll get used to it.
Bad enough in stuck watching a bad Yankees game, but schilling and kruk on the call.
Schilling’s presence means Kruk doesn’t get to talk as much, and that is a big improvement.
There is some weird sound like birds chirping coming from my left speaker on this telecast.
There are no crickets at the Colosseum.
High sparrows?
Lew can’t get his usual high-visibility seat for a national TV game?
Outranked by a guy who wears a suit to the ballpark on a holiday.
Plus Lew appears to be stuck behind a guy who’s about 6’7″, 260.
9 up, 9 down since Ken took the PxP mic for the 3rd and 4th innings. It would be nice if the A’s could give him at least a hit to call.
Like that! A Reddick triple, an excellent choice.
Apparently I should have asked for more.
It feels like an early March game. I’m tuning in to enjoy listening to Ken, it doesn’t really matter that much what’s going on in the game. Unfortunately it looks like that will be the case for whichever of the remaining 115 games Ken may be present.
such bullshit
BOOBIES
Also, another brutal E-6.
Muncy is looking about like Mark McGwire looked at 3B.
Too bad he’s not hitting that way.
more McGwire like than parrino
Absolutely brutal. I’d rather have seen Parrino today at 3B.
his first error had “GET ME OUT OF HERE” written all over it, the second…
This tv crew is really insufferable.
The production decision to make this a three hour advertisement for the military is also not helping.
Please hit the ball in the air Billy.
Or just beat out a ground ball. That works.
That worked. But who thinks that the Tigers SS would have had better luck throwing all the way across the diamond to get Butler, instead of going for Reddick at 2B?
The thought crossed my mind.
I thought he made a stupid play not going for the out at 1B.
yeah, that was odd
LOL Butler tagging and scoring without a throw!
They got the scouting reports mixed up between Billys Butler and Burns.
it was plenty deep enough
Look at that speed!
Tigers advance scouts seem to have confused Billy Butler for Billy Burns.
Live run differential now at -3 for the season.
BaseRuns expected winning percentage (not including today): .549
Vince: “Stroke towards short…towards shallow…towards short…and Machado makes the play.”
What a shame that wasn’t a Korach inning.
he played well
save for the error
I know a lot of you don’t care much for GBA, but if they are going to have it as part of these games, that presentation is the way to do it.
did you catch the “Dooooooolittle” for one of them? is she a relation?
Give Dick Callahan a thumbs-up for that. (I doubt she is.)
Only one walk all game … is the strike zone particularly generous today?
Seems a little generous, yeah. Not many deep counts.
Not really. Mostly just pitchers throwing strikes.
nice work
At Brooks, it actually looks a little tight for left-handed hitters and pretty accurate for right-handed hitters, maybe a little generous on the inside corner.
Yeah, run into the 3rd out. Because that has worked so well for us this year.
Wow, Hahn for the ninth!
Give him a chance for the CG shutout, in spite of the fact he and they will probably pay for it on Saturday.
Nice, good for the kid.
Gotta come up with something for the season highlights.
112 pitches – not too bad.
I mean, he essentially pitched 10 and a third
3!!!
” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
That’s very impressive. The 1962 Mets won 3 in a row twice, and won 2 in a row 7 other times.
There was a streak of 6 last July, so they’re going to have to go some to push further back than that.
Pollyanna says this has broken the curse and here we go again.
I like Pollyanna. She’s usually wrong, but its nice to dream.
A’s win a day game at home!
A’s win three in a row!
A’s win a nationally televised game!
The trifecta of impossible!
What the what!!???
Kara’s back. she sat next to us at one point. said it was her first day back. New kid is well. they move to [somewhere I don’t remember not SF].
I am not a fashion guy, I am not a flag waiver, I am not a military rah rah, but this really bugs me:
I don’t understand what’s bugging you? It looks OK to me.
flag always has the blue forward, as if you are riding into battle.
As best as I can tell that is one organization’s “suggestion”. It certainly does not appear in the formal Flag Code.
isn’t it all just “suggestion?”
Anyway, it still bugs me, but I think its funny because they make such a production of “support the troops USA USA” then their Chinese made hats have a flag supposedly to honor America the opposite way that a flag would be on a military garment.
it’s a regulation. AR 670-1.
What would be unseemly and offensive would be if the giveaway actually tried to mimic real military uniforms. In this case, following the universal civilian practice for the flag on clothing seems right to me.
I think Ed’s general point has validity. There must be only one flag patch on this cap, and I guess the other side has either a sponsor’s logo or a cap company’s logo if it’s not blank. So the obvious solution is to put the single flag patch on the left side of the head, on the umpteen occasions this comes up in the future.
I would like to believe that its a “civilian” hat. but I am sure its trying to be a support the troops thing
Now I’m trying to remember the alignment of the flag logo on Klinger’s Toledo Mud Hens cap…
Take it off and see it to the other side. Problem solved.
Oooh! I forgot SLF is badass with a sewing machine. She’s perfect for the job.
3 in a row feels oddly momentous.
If Steph is broken I quit sports.
That was a very terrible looking fall.
Seeing that live I thought he had broken his wrist. But it turns out it was the head injury that was the problem. I would not have put him back in that game, regardless of score. Heck, Klay seemed to do better when he was out anyway.
How in the world was that not flagrant 2?
I never understand what puts it over the line. I’m thinking it was a combination of Bogut having just shoved him, and Bogut being Bogut.
If you wanted to know how weak the current crop of AL shortstops is, Marcus Semien stands third in the all star voting.
He’s tied for 2nd in WAR*
*If you believe that his fielding has been only 6 runs below the average SS so far.
Danny Santana (Twins) has been nearly as bad on defense (by UZR) but he has a 56 wRC+ to go with it!
Ufff, Elvis Andrus has -0.4 WAR, is making $15M this year, and has a guaranteed contract through 2022. I wouldn’t wish that contract on any team… except the Rangers, Angels, Royals, Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers…
If you take a look at the fangraphs WAR leaderboard and set the minimum number of PA to zero (since WAR is a counting stat anyway), you find that Jed Lowrie is in second place (but tied with Semien, Miller, and Escobar) even though he played in 18 games before getting hurt. The All-Star ballots actually look pretty reasonable by WAR, with some accommodation for injuries.
the A’s are so bad, but should send 3 people to the All star game. so messed up.
that cain has more votes than trout and infant and that perez is so far ahead of Vogt makes me madder about something something.
Starting the awesome defense early tonight.