The A’s returned from Texas a week ago Friday on a roll, having won 9 of 11 to halve their deficit from 14 games under .500 to 7 under. A 10 game homestand seemed to present an opportunity to get back into legitimate postseason contention. But they’ve dropped 5 of 8 and need wins today and tomorrow to salvage a .500 homestand. A team that dug itself such a big hole before Memorial Day needs to do something a little more special than that. If they’re going to preserve any illusion of contention, in Billy Beane’s mind if few others, they can start by beating Felix Hernandez in a holiday afternoon game at the Coliseum. Good luck.
Burns 8, Vogt 2, Zobrist 7, Reddick 9, Butler DH, Davis 3, Lawrie 5, Sogard 4, Semien 6 behind Kendall Graveman.
Have a safe and fun Fourth of July!
The guys wearing green and gold socks with these red white & blue special unis and caps look like clowns. This is a day to pull the pants down to the shoetops.
yeah. I like the idea that the whole uniform is RW&B better. they need new belts and rwb socks
THEY GOT THE FLAG RIGHT THIS TIME
And Bryce Harper’s bat. Flag. Stars. A bald eagle driving a tank.
how does billy burns continue to do that?
thank you eric.
He is really a breath fresh air
Depose the King.
just like we drew it up
safe
I don’t get how they miss that one in the first place. Watch the foot on the base, listen for the ball into the glove.
yay, no dp
the stealing home thing isn’t going to work for vogt
That was Bob trying to demonstrate his managing brilliance.
chile with lost of pressure. I hope av is ok
I doubt it. Somehow symbolic that only Messi could score.
still trying to learn the rules, that one thing seemed like a red?
i don’t know what you guys are talking about. tevez’s shot into the bottom corner from lavezzi’s cross at the 89th was brilliant and there was no way chile could come back. good thing martino’s not so mentally challenged all he can do is complain about stuff vividly and smile ironically, didn’t come up with a gameplan that rendered messi extraneous, and decided to put in charlie over pipita “one out of three sitters” higuaÃn when it counted. there’s no way it could have gone differently.
I know it is silly to think there is much of a chance still. But I had said to myself if there was anything left we needed 3 out of 4 here so we left the weekend out of the basement. 1 was nice there, but against even the somewhat human King we have seen this year I would have liked to have seen some crookedness.
I really hope Theth gets the afternoon off tomorrow. We know how he loved Hyundai Sunday Funday here.
Damnit
Yup.
Huh. Felix alternated shitty starts with good ones through June, and extrapolating, this would be a day of suckage.
…bleah, leave it to the A’s to fix that…
Yep.
Relative to how we normally fair against him, it isnt that bad.
I’m so glad we traded Donaldson for a 3B who can lay down a sac bunt which results in no runs in the inning (to be fair to everyone, Melvin obviously had that same thought).
Damn Canadians.
Graveman continues to undermine my strong dislike of the Donaldson trade. He was very good, and I was impressed with his ability to get out of trouble in the 7th.
First win against King Felix in Oakland since 2008? I didn’t realize it was that bad.
So they had not recorded a single victory against the King in Oakland during the Obama administration?
That’s… stunning.
It’s a celebration!
Wave that flag, wave it wide and high!
(Also, holy shit, they beat Felix.)
Nice.
Hooray!
And sorry AV…
Worst record in the league and only six games out of the playoffs. Weird season.
wait, what? 6 games? I mean, wild card standings are tough to pay attention to in the first half but, damn? really?
With the 10 teams in front of us, while technically only 6 games out, we’re really a lot further out than what 6 games are normally.
While only 2 AL teams are more than 10 games over .500 (KC and Houston), 8 others currently have better than .500 records.
In the 3 years with the 2 wild card set-up, no team has won a wild card spot with more than 74 losses, and that seems like a minimum goal; if you don’t have a reasonable chance to finish 88-74 you don’t have a realistic chance to play past Game 162.
A team that’s 42-40 at this point needs to go 46-34 the rest of the way to hit that. I think several of those teams currently over .500 are likely to achieve that, particularly with a key acquisition or two.
The A’s need to go 50-28 from here to hit 88 wins. There’s nothing that makes me think the A’s are likely to run off a stretch like that. At the core they’re a +/- .500 team. If they were 46-38 I’d give them a decent chance, but they’re 38-46. They dug themselves too deep a hole at 14-30 and it’s pretty much been 3 steps forward, 2 steps back since then. Sure, it’s a mathematical possibility, but not a very big one.
So, you’re saying we have a chance.
Of course there’s a chance. BP put it at 1.4% for the division and 4.4% for a wild card spot entering today. If they clunk along at 4-3 from now until the All-Star Break that would only decline a little (still a longshot but hmmm maybe give it one more week). 6-1 would improve it a fair amount, but 2-5 would make Billy’s decision pretty easy.
The bigger question is how far away this team, as currently constituted, is away from being legitimate contenders. That affects what sorts of trade are made, or who might be kept.
Can this team, with a better start and some shrewd additions, contend as soon as next year? I’m doubtful, but there’s a decent starting rotation in place and some players who have been pleasant surprises. Some of them are probably mirages; others might not be.
I think it’s a bit silly to think this team can contend in 2015, if for no other reason than the math doesn’t work and there’s no reason to think the A’s are going to go 50-28. The team has regressed to the mean, in part because the bullpen is less awful, but it’s still not a playoff team.
I think the A’s might be entering a sellers’ market, with almost every team in baseball a theoretical contender. We can safely assume that no team is going to give away a hotshot, major league-ready prospect at a key position in exchange for anyone we might trade, save Sonny Gray.
Well, we’re 6th in run diff and a shitty bullpen separates us from being in heavy contention and where we’re at right now.
^^^
If there’s one statistic I have learned to ignore, it’s run differential. I just don’t think it means a thing, or if it does, it doesn’t really apply to the A’s.
And even if it did mean anything, the A’s have the record they do. They’re not going to go 50-28 the rest of the way, and that’s the bare miniumum of wins needed given all the teams ahead of them in the division and wild card.
I agree that this season is a lost cause, but their run differential does give me hope for what this roster could do next year starting from a blank slate. This is also not the same as saying that this roster is good enough as is, but when Beane sits down to try to build it up, I think a good estimate of his current baseline is .500 or maybe a little better.
Yup, this is basically what I was driving at. This season is definitely toast. But trade deadline approach should assume that we’re good, but specifically flawed.
Agreed.
And the specific flaws are AS and the bullpen. I’d like to think Beane would be willing to move on from Semien but then I remember how they stubbornly insisted Adrian Cardenas had a legit chance to stick at SS.
The bullpen should be an easier target… just find power arms with repeatable deliveries.
Replacing Zobrist is a concern for me too. Second base and left field (barring miraculous reCocovery) are big question marks, and his production as a switch hitter is key to the lineup.
FK the bullpen.
Has any team consistently outperformed or under-performed Pythag for more than 3-4 years? I remember the Angels used to for a while. Until they didn’t.
I think it’s the same: the A’s will continue to under-perform run differential. You know, until they don’t.
So the spotlight has been on Bob and Phil; Trey, Bruce and Jeff are there to fill out the sound in supporting roles. Trey’s playing has been fine but Bob and Phil have handled 2/3 of Jerry’s vocals. That’s OK much of the time, even considering Phil’s obvious limitations, but I found Bob’s work on Stella Blue somewhat jarring. Meanwhile when they gave Trey something to sing it was a third-string Jerry song, Foolish Heart, which didn’t really belong in the set list at all. I thought tonight’s first set was fine, a nice variety well played, and last night’s second set was quite good. Tonight’s second set was more in line with my lower expectations going in, plus it just seemed like they were holding back a lot for the finale tomorrow (which I do have high hopes for).
Bruce should be singing most of the Jerry songs, especially the ballads.