The situation is so bleak, even Thunderbutt’s enthusiasm is waning. That must mean the spectacular turnaround is imminent. Eric Surkamp’s improbable run to the Cy Young Award begins tonight on Getaway Night in Boston, with this thunderous lineup behind him facing the inconsistent but pretty good so far this year Rick Porcello:
Crisp DH, Burns CF, Reddick RF, Davis LF, Vogt C, Butler 1B, Alonso 3B, Semien SS, Coghlan 2B.
Worse defensive infield possible, no?
Thanks, and go As.
Marcus is the best of the four – by a wide margin.
They could bring Callaspo back.
They could play me at second.
Whenever I think of games in Boston, I think of Monday night baseball when, for some reason, we had our reclamation project start against Roger Clemens.
I still remember how Jim Palmer kept slobbering over Clemens while dismissing Stew.
(To be fair, the A’s were bad that season and the Red Sox were playoff-bound, but still…)
Poor Stew had to pay someone on Crocker street to slobber over him.
[Curt Schilling creates, posts meme to Facebook about Dave Stewart prowling the restrooms at Target Field]
Hey guys, the A’s are winning!
Nope
I feel fairly sure that they’ll again be leading at some point in some game layer this month.
all part of the plan
NOT LOSING!
Khlutch!
……..
chris fucking young
How is the top talent in the 2017 draft?
gross
He hasn’t played for the A’s since 2010.
I didn’t seriously think that record of 51 runs in 4 games would be in jeopardy, but that’s 44.
bloops like this will help
Hard to see how it doesn’t get broken at this point.
Just scanning through the scores for big numbers, giving up 40 runs in a 4-game stretch is uncommon but it does happen, perhaps a dozen or so times in Oakland history.
The 1955 Kansas City A’s had a stretch of giving up 68 runs in 5 games. They gave up 39 in 4 games and then capped it off by coughing up 29 to the White Sox in the fifth game. Best of all, those were the fifth through ninth games the Kansas City A’s had ever played after moving from Philadelphia.
we did it?
First time in A’s 116 year history they’ve yielded 11+ runs in four straight games, and first time in majors by any team since 1929.
http://m.sfgate.com/athletics/article/A-s-get-thrashed-again-set-franchise-record-7463335.php
Boom. We made it.
we all knew going into this series that sonny was the workhorse.
This definitely has to be the final night of the Alonso at 3B experiment. Coghlan and Ladendorf in the infield if Valencia remains day-to-day.
I have this vague recollection of pitching being the strength of this team a few weeks ago.
Yeah. Maybe it was a good play, ken, but did we ever think Butler would beat it?
He got him by like 10 steps. A lesser play only gets him by 5.
comeback!
On the way out of town, please dump most of this pitching staff into the harbor along with the tea. And Butler.
fuck! god dammit! shit!
I don’t want to overreact, but I think everybody needs to go. All the players, the coaches, Melvin, Forst, Beane, Wolff, Stomper…everybody.
Me?
Yes. Sorry. I’m packing up too.
[gets slumber-party supplies ready]
I’m understanding why, of all the Beane acolytes, no team ever made Forst an offer he couldn’t refuse. Granted he didn’t have much to work with this offseason.
Nothing has happened in the last two years to shake my belief that the last good run of front officing was mostly attributable to Zaidi.
It really does feel like a lot more moves in last 2 years have been the high variance, wishcasting sort.
This year, though, is a lot more suck by payroll design, small revenue plan that has not been a Beane approach very often.
This may be the worst team of the Beane era and I’m not even being hyperbolic. They’re near last or smack dab last in almost every possible baseball category. Even in the morose Geren years, they at least played competent defense and had decent pitching; this team simply can’t hit, can’t pitch, can’t defend.
I’m glad I was dragged to that new Captain America movie, that was a far more entertaining 2 hours than having to pay attention to this.
Well at least this time you can fully blame the players and/or the front office’s ability to choose players. In the Geren era, there was such a high fuck up management going on that even though the players were a major part of it, it was hard to distinguish it. But this is mid/late 90s A’s bad for me. During that time where our pitchers sucked such serious ass it was hard to give a shit about them let alone watch. But I think we need a regime change. Whether Beane/Forst is at fault or not is irrelevant, they’ve stagnated here.
I’ve been very resistant to saying this, because we could get end up with someone worse, but I have reached the point wanting a house cleaning. You just cannot be this bad. And you cannot be this bad and have a less than excellent farm system after trading away multiple all stars, including a cost-controlled MVP. It’s hard to overstate how badly they have damaged what they built in 2012-2013 with completely self-inflicted wounds.
I’ve been done with them since the Donaldson trade. I don’t mind them trading him, but that was an abysmal trade from the get go. That wasn’t the first bad deal, but that just put a giant stamp on it. And their explanations have become dumber and dumber. We could get someone worse, but without the history of success with this organization, there would be a quicker hook rather than continue to accept mediocrity.
Though increasingly the “history of success” looks more and more a function of the luck (TINSTAAPP/health) of having the Big 3 on the cheap.
I think that’s unfair, or at least it can be said about nearly every great team. Where would Brian Sabean be without having hit on Lincecum/Cain/Bumgarner? Beane deserves credit for picking Mulder, and then getting Haren for him before he broke. He deserves credit for picking Zito who was ready to dominate in the big leagues right away and never got hurt. And he built great teams around those guys on the relative cheap that could very easily have won multiple World Series.
And then they made a ton of shrewd moves to build the 2012-July2014 juggernaut. Cespedes, Colon, Kazmir, Balfour, Crisp, Gomes, Moss, Vogt…those were all outstanding signings that were not obvious at all. Ditto getting Reddick for Bailey, or Parker and Cook for Cahill. And then things like turning Doolittle back into a pitcher and Donaldson into a third baseman. There’s a lot of luck involved of course, but that’s a hell of a track record.
I think he’s lost the plot, but I won’t diminish his past successes.
His early success came heavily on the back of Alderson. He was a part of the lead in so it’s not like he just showed up and reaped the rewards. And our latest success was pretty incredible too. But I also believe people can stagnant. He could move on and find success again, but i think staying in Oakland is likely to just involve more the same as now with a flash here and there.
Not only CAN they stagnate, I think that is almost always the case. You give any coach/GM/manager enough time and everyone will tire of hearing his schtick.
At Fresno State, Pat Hill owned the town for half a decade. He still was eventually run out on a slow moving train. And after a couple of years away, I bet he would now be fresh and loved again.
Also, I have never felt Forst is worth a damn. The first times I ever remembered hearing about him was around the start of the Old Bob era, so I have always tied the 2 together.
I cant believe this. Checked my phone and our starter only lasted 4 innings against the off day??
I’ll go back to work now…
Let’s go Sharks!
Excellent first period, Sharks flat dominated. Need to add on now.
Like that!
All game. 4 on 1 lol
That was crazy, 60 minutes in complete command. Bring on the Blues.
Conveniently scheduled not to overlap at all with the Warriors’ conference finals. I think I’ll clamber onto the bandwagon now if only to distract myself from the A’s.
quakes just beat houston 3-1.
actually looked competent!
Thanks, and go As.
It is scary. Not taking anything for granted, but I really believe if they are playing at their best, they are the best team remaining. Defensively they are just so solid (minus game six), and Jones is such an upgrade over Niemi and tail-end of Nabokov. He’s such a calming presence back there.
They have fallen behind 0-2 in every WCF in which they played. This would be a good fking time to change that!
If you consider the number of people involved, Santa being fake has got to be the largest cover up in human history.
Thanks, and go As.
The Papal Infallibility scam has 1,000 years on Santa. But no one really ever believed that one.