A’s trot out an all-righty lineup to face Rays lefty Guy Smiley, seen here:
1. Billy Burns (S) CF
2. Mark Canha (R) 1B
3. Danny Valencia (R) 3B
4. Josh Phegley (R) C
5. Jake Smolinski (R) RF
6. Brett Lawrie (R) 2B
7. Billy Butler (R) DH
8. Coco Crisp (S) LF
9. Marcus Semien (R) SS
A’s counter with the Hound:
Bassitt favoring the gold jerseys tonight. Jaso eschews the hairbrush.
The gold on Phegley’s chest protector so perfectly matches the jersey that it looks like he’s wearing a green chest thong.
Love those (possibly) Raiders-influenced hops in the outfield.
Long piece of bare plywood broke off the advertising sign behind the plate and it’s just lying there in play, gotta love the Coliseum.
Hi
No-hitter for Fiers against the Doyers.
I wonder if anybody in the bay area sports media will comment that the Astros helped the Gnats tonight?
The A’s took everything the Dodgers had, and everything they were ever gonna have.
man, that kid was excited
I am happy for Chang, the foul ball hawking Plaza IF kid who banters with Dick Callahan, getting an inning on the PA.
Sounds like he has a good voice for it.
way to go evan
has an entire bullpen ever been non tendered?
The A’s have 3 of the “top” 10 AL pitchers in HR/9 with a minimum of 30 IP.
Shawn Marcum of Cleveland, who was DFA’d in June, is the overall leader (9 HR, 35 IP, 2.31 HR/9).
Edward Mujica is #2 in the league overall (9 HR, 36 IP, 2.25 HR/9) but 2.42 HR/9 since joining the A’s (fewer than 30 IP with the A’s though).
Scribner is #7 (12 HR, 57 IP, 1.895 HR/9) and Fernando Abad is #10 (7 HR, 34 IP, 1.853 HR/9).
this would be pretty cool if it were still 1-0
Life!
strikeout.
naturally
C’mon Billy Burns, earn yourself some pie
Drat. Burns not up for the opportunities he had tonight.
Not Sonny’s best curveball.
Not his best 4-seamer to Jaso.
Surprised that the Raider preseason broadcast team actually has a rain delay tape package at the ready.
yes vince, canha is dong better because he is comfortable
The comfort gives him confidence and the confidence gives him consistency.
Comfortable!
See, comfort is infectious. One guy gets comfortable, then they all start getting comfortable. The A’s should all wear sweatpants.
Yoga pants
Billy Butler would probably like that plan.
Extra room for more bacon and eggs.
Now I want eggs.
When I was looking at the HR/9 rates this morning, Sonny showed up as one of the best…not quite so much after tonight.
don’t look at how the blue jays scored their runs today
Going to be a pretty interesting MVP race between him and Trout.
depends who makes the playoffs
A little surprised it’s not Doo for the save, just because so many others have failed Bob to this point.
Still, I somehow think the A’s won’t blow this. I am a fool.
The Cy Young Award obviously shouldn’t be related to bullpen performance…but this is a knife in the ribs to Sonny’s chances.
Et tu pat?
Welcome to Groundhog Day: The Remake.
This is almost funny.
Bed, if you read this later I’m headed to Arkansas thus fall for a concert. I think it’s on the opposite side of the state from you though.
Also on the schedule is Indiana and Sioux City, IA.
I need to start hitting up states I haven’t been to.
I have a hot springs and Cal football trip (Salt Lake City) planned for the week when the A’s would otherwise be losing the AL Division Series. The baseball suckage does free up some interesting alternatives.
Note to sslinger: Because of the expense of the aforementioned trip to Utah and Colorado, I do not expect to come to the Bay Area for the Raiders/Vikings weekend.
Man, Colorado was amazing. I almost cried the entire time I was there. Beautiful. Refreshing.
Want to go to Red Rocks with me next year? I’m accepting applications for new friends right now.
I will be driving up to Oregon during the Grizzlies 2 home playoff games. Since I am missing the first time in like 18 years to see hometown playoff baseball, I plan to make a least 1-2 side stops to see pretty things.
And I hope to not cry the entire way home without a son in the car.
Aw gee whiz, what a shame. Right before we’re going up there to play them too. The general story does sound kind of familiar:
This A’s-M’s series could be fun, extra inning games with multiple lead changes are exciting!
The resistible force meets the movable object.
Sunday sees Graveman on the hill, A’s in the green jerseys, Rays in the road greys.
Burns, Canha, Reddick, Valencia, Vogt, Lawrie, Butler, Sogard, Fuld.
0-0 after one inning.
vince, i don’t have the energy for “the reality is” today.
I spent the entire fucking day yesterday in the sun, listening to a dude tell war stories about his days coaching SJ state womens soccer in order to have my “F license” so I can
coachtrain 7 year olds. I had been up until 230 on one of the 4 (not exaggerating) websites I had to log into to qualify for the privilege.Our kids are the richer for it, Ed.
The reality is, the A’s have a weird-ass collection of socks on the field right now.
Also, they had a suck-ass collection of hitters in that inning.
Speaking of Suck Ass, he’s a free agent. I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes September roster fill.
ladendorff should fill his roll
If I ever see Sogard and Rosales in A’s uniforms together again I quit.
The A’s can move on from Sogard if they can find a starting SS; then Semien can be on-hand to be the back-up.
Tampa tried their best to give away a run that inning, but the A’s baserunners would accept no such gift.
Doolittle sighting!
Great to see Doolittle, sporting yet another different sock look for the A’s today.
welcome to team dynamite sean
Abandon all Wins, ye pitchers starting here.
yo ho yo ho an athletics live for me
We error, we boner, we groove em, and boot,
Drink up, me ‘earties, yo ho.
We walk em and drop em and don’t give a hoot,
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
This is getting really, really bad.
Can’t blame lawrie. Gallago is more often than not wrong
There was a great slow mo replay which showed Gallego holding up the stop sign then dropping his hands and shoulders in defeat as Lawrie steamed heedlessly past him.
To me, players increasingly ignoring the third base coach is an indication that the team is becoming pretty dysfunctional.
You could see the thought bubble over Gallego’s head when he sent Vogt. It read: “Butler, Sogard, Fuld”.
For anyone who caught my series thread on Friday just as this one went up, I did question how many times Team Dynamite would do its thing only for the A’s offense to make things interesting.
Team dynamite will really need to overachieve to blow this one.
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Saving it all for the 9th.
So I tried to see if there’s any correlation between the percentage of games starters get the decision in and their place in the standings. I looked at eight examples.
OAK – 68.8% (last place team, and we know they have a bad bullpen)
LAD – 63.1% (first place team, but they also have a bad bullpen)
PHI – 73.2% (last place team, presumably lots of games decided early)
MIA – 69.9% (last place team)
COL – 63.6% (last place team)
HOU – 66.1% (first place team, actually a lower percentage than the A’s)
STL – 70.5% (first place team, also the lowest number of SPs out of this group with just 8 different ones)
KCR – 73.0% (first place team, and we know their bullpen is excellent)
Based on this sample, I don’t think anything really stands out one way or another.
Hey, folks. Haven’t been around for a couple of days. What did I miss?
Many different kinds of socks.
Graveman has a strained oblique, says Bob. Bring up Zito, says me.
Zito is still on the DL, having last pitched on August 5. The Sounds are in Reno for a few days and Zito isn’t listed on the upcoming starters list though they do show TBA for Wednesday.
Someone hit me up if they watch “Fear TWD”.
I will watch later tonight. Looking forward to feeling superior to the idiots in LA not knowing to stay away from zombies.
I was not thrilled, but I’ll keep watching. Can’t use the spoiler tag on my phone easily, so I’ll limit my comments to “Yay, Joanie Stubbs!”
During the brief time I watched today, Glen and Ray were talking about the Royals magic number. They were talking about how unusual it was for “the Royals to have a magic number so soon” and wondering “if any other team had one right now”.
I really think they do not understand that it is just a mathematical calculation, and that as early as the first games of the year it does exist.
Well, they’re…not smart.
I don’t get how a job that every sports fan would want doesn’t foster the competition to develop great sport casters. I have no doubt that I know more about baseball than Glen and I could certainly talk better than Ray.
How are there not better sportscasters?
Fosse has been there so long that I think he’s complacent, and Kuiper just seems to go through the motions. Thing is, most of this is on Kuiper. People seem to agree that Fosse is better when he’s paired with Korach and Cotroneo, though a lot of that is just Korach alone. I don’t even feel like there’s much of a rapport between Kuiper and Fosse. They’re sort of just…there.
I could live with Fosse, but only if he could figure out how to ask a damn question.
He’d be better if he left out “How great is/was it,” yeah.
The simalcasts before korach came back with cince and ray were good. Vince has many, many, many shortcomings as a baseball analyst, and thinks he knows so much more than he does, but I could live with him and ray. I can’t listen to him on the radio. and won’t.
I don’t know if I have said this, but I like the 4 giants guys, they call a pretty good game. BUt but but save for Krukow, they pretend the other team doesn’t exist. they never tell a story about the opposition. they throw up for basic stats, and maybe mention things about their reputation, but that’s it.
I think that is why so many giants fans have such a limited perspective on baseball.
You listen to Vin Scully and you’ll come away one of the smarter fans in the league.