An A’s loss or a Rangers win tonight eliminates the A’s from AL West title contention, but we’ll still be in the running for the wild card. The Mariners are pretty much dead too, needing to win something like 18 or 19 of their final 22 with four teams standing between them and the second wild card.
Mengden, Graveman and Alcan’tthrowstrikes for the A’s, with Iwakuma, Felix and Paxton for the M’s. Saturday and Sunday are both at 1:05.
Mengden: Epic mustache, still not major-league-ready.
Although, he did stop sucking after the 2nd inning.
Of those final 22, the Mariners have 7 vs. the A’s, 3 vs. the Angels and 3 vs. the Twins so I suppose you can’t rule out the possibility.
I love that this guy won the
i only caught a little of that on the radio.
What the hell?
And that’s mathematical elimination from the division title. Still a chance at the wild card but I will now devote 100% of my frustration to Cal football, where it’s undoubtedly needed.
Frustrating loss last night, or encouraging almost win?
Cal’s front seven needs to improve a lot to handle a team with a strong rushing game. Webb needs to be great, not just decent, because when Cal scores “only” 40 points they will only win about half the time. It was neither frustrating or encouraging, more like exactly as expected against a good team on the road. They are borderline to win 6 games to earn that return trip to the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl…but the Pac-12 does not have any elite teams this year and there isn’t anybody in the league they can’t beat on their home field with a strong performance.
Two teams in the top 10 not elite?
Rankings don’t mean anything in September. They mostly reflect program reputation. I was not sold on Furd vs. K-State. U-Dub is one of those “trendy” picks.
Wilner went with same old discouraging shit.
Hey! Cool! the A’s have an “e” by their name in the standings. For “ED” undoubtedly
undoubtEdly
4 hit inning.
nice
You tricked me.
Strange how rare this is.
Might have been a PIDP if Butler were the batter. I think most fielders don’t want to take a chance on an unexpected bounce.
He did a brilliant job of selling the catch while getting in position to pick it up.
Shouldn’t it be called an infield fly precisely to prevent that?
Replacing the runner at first with a slower runner is thought not to be enough of an advantage to the defensive team to justify applying the infield fly rule in that situation. The purpose of the infield fly rule is to prevent sleazy two force-out double plays which is why it only applies with runners at first and second, or bases loaded.
So the only way a defensive team can get a double play on an infield fly is if there’s some severe TOOTBLANing:
And I would add on that, since the infield fly rule involves calling an automatic out without requiring any execution by the defense, I think it would be lame to call it with a runner only on first on a “high sky” sunny day or a windy day.
D’oh – I spaced on the missing runner.
Though the ump can call it an out if it’s intentionally dropped. They don’t if it’s untouched, but technically the rules allow it.
Not that I’m paying any attention to this game but it’s still on in the background. This is only J.B. Wendelken’s 7th appearance in a game? It seemed more like 20. The A’s have lost every game in which he’s appeared, only once losing by fewer than 6 runs.
Welcome to J.B. Wendleken’s Family Fun Food Factory! When you’re here, you’re losing!
Just like the early Jesse Chavez days. Or Jim Johnson.
We’ll see if both the A’s and Cal can be trailing 14-0 at some point in their games today.
So 8-13 the rest of the way gets the A’s to my primary target, a repeat 94-loss season, and 6-15 gets them to my worst-case 96 losses. With 14 of the final 21 on the road those numbers look to be on the money.
they made me referee the elder kids game because no hay referee
Based on our two anecdotes, sounds like it was a total meltdown yesterday.
Anyway, I hope you didn’t take any shit off any little kids who tried to get smart with you.
one of theo’s friends took exception to my determination he last touched the ball on a corner/goal kick, and theo tried to convince me that the kid with the ball on the breakaway the ended in a goal was “offsides.” SLF was the VAR and back talked me on another corner/goal kick. but it was ok.
Except when i had to call my own kid for heading the ball
I sure hope you put him in his place, because that’s some absolute FKing bull..
It’s not ‘offsides’ — it’s singular. “Offside”
GOSH.
Thanks, and go As.
hey, he seemed to be the only one that had any idea there was a rule
the game before us was a U10 or so comp, there was a ref, and he gave a yellow.
I was half watching and didn’t see what was go egregious about the tackle (because that’s not where my attention was) but the pop us and two handed shove to the chest from the non yellow carded player seemed…aggressive.
pop up, not pop us
Ran into Rick Tittle today at the Quakes game.
I don’t actually have anything interesting to say. That was it.
Thanks, and go As.
you made it home
dude. RIDICULOUS.
I honestly didn’t move for 20 minutes trying to get out of the lot.
I’m reaching out to everybody I know involved with the quakes about that shit. Completely unacceptable.
Thanks, and go As.
Today in IP overreach and college football administration avarice.
Perfect DBag article for the ultimate DBag school.
I was worried when I clicked this, but I surprisingly like this field for some unexplained reason.
It’s better than the Eastern Washington one, at least.
Better do it one more time just to be sure.
” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
Came here to say exactly this.
This is cute, but are they seriously doing a twitter hashtag vote thing for the Roberto Clemente award? That’s stupid.
Totally unrelated things, but whatever gets him through the night I suppose.
It’s OK, we’re disappointed in how his time in Oakland went, too.
But not surprised.
He wanted to last one more day, because now he has to pay his own way to see his buddies in KC rather than hitching a ride on the A’s plane.
Football heads: questionable strategy to go for two there by the Raiders?
I thought so. This says it was the right move though.
Interesting. That’s a lot lower threshold than I would have expected with 12 minutes left.
It all came out in the wash anyway, as it turns out.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
4>3
What happened? “I wish I knew the answer to that question,†Forst said.
I know the answer. You FKed up.
is there a reason it happened now? with two weeks left?
(Three.)
With expanded rosters, no reason to play him at all, and they don’t need him hanging out in the clubhouse bitching anymore.
also a dick move to take all the sounds pitching and have them suck in oakland
What choice do they have though?
i wish i knew
Unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that may decide the game because a guy got too excited at making a huge play. God NFL rules are stupid.
That was damn close.
This.
Also,
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAIDERS!!!!!!!!!!!
W00t!
fucking vince. stop telling me about fair foul and tell me if its a base hit or not
Alcantara is doing OK
Swept in four of the last five series against division rivals.
More Slussage
THat seems stupid.
Thanks, and go As.
I’m fine with losing all the veteran journeymen.
The oldest position players currently on the 40-man plus 60-day DL are:
Fuld – 34
Lowrie – 32
Valencia – 32 in a week
Vogt – 31
McBride – 31
Sogard – 30
Alonso – will be 30 right at the start of next season
Vogt will stay. Lowrie wouldn’t bring anything in a trade due to contract ($6.5M for next year plus a $1M buyout for 2018) so I think he’ll probably be around too. Alonso is 50/50. And that’s your veteran leadership on the 2017 A’s.
I feel like someone would give up something for Valencia.
Maybe not though. IDK.
Thanks, and go As.
We didn’t give up anything for him.
I don’t care if valencia is here or not, I don’t see any reason not to keep him.
Hopefully Chapman will Barton it up and force an alanso non tender
two lefty catchers is weird, so I can see mcbride staying
Hopefully the fuld fetish will subside.
olson.
I cannot ever get that straight
Olson and Nunez up.
Valencia may be dumped posthaste to make room on the field.
So, attempting to keep track of this, there are currently 39 on the 40-man roster and 32 on the expanded active roster. The 32 include 16 pitchers and 3 catchers.
The ones not active are: Gray (15-day DL), Hahn, Montas, Overton, Roach, Ladendorf (15-day DL) and Ravelo.
The 60-day DL is: Alvarez, Bassitt, Doubront, Parker, Rodriguez, Phegley, Canha, Lowrie, Sogard, Fuld and Lambo.
I think that’s right.
Triggs is among those 32 on the active roster, but isn’t expected to pitch again, so really belongs with the DL group.
And of those 31 active, 20 also played for the Sounds this year (not counting rehab assignments).
Going back to the AN days there were always people calling for Billy to blow it up, and he and Forst have finally done it. In 2017 we’re the Astros of about 3 years ago.
You probably have to look further back in the Astros history. By 2013 they had already bottomed out and had a kickass farm system.
A little bit farther, but not that much. It “helped” the Astros in strengtheing the farm system that they clung to the remnants of their 2005 World Series team for far too long before truly committing to the kids.
Astros PA by players at least 30 years old according to B-R:
2009: 3972 PA (88 losses)
2010: 2937 PA (86 losses)
2011: 2100 PA (106 losses)
(kaboom)
2012: 678 PA (107 losses)
2013: 611 PA (111 losses)
2014: 377 PA (92 losses)
2015: 271 PA (76 losses)
The A’s are at 2157 PA in 2016 with Coco, Butler and Coghlan (848) already gone and Valencia (445) evidently on the way out. Vogt and Lowrie (818) are still here.
I can’t believe the Coghlan experiment was this year. It seems so long ago.
And further on the “blow it up” theme, something they will address in the next three weeks is whether Melvin and Young are the right guys to have in the dugout for the type of team the A’s will field for the next couple years. They apparently addressed a significant part of the “clubhouse chemistry” issue by writing a check for $11M yesterday but that is something that does not reflect well on the manager; going back a few years the Fuentes matter was the last straw for Geren here. With Young, the number of injuries to pitchers in the last couple seasons has to raise the question of whether a different set of eyes and a fresh approach would help. The NFL has its “Black Monday” and I would not be too surprised by an A’s version on the day of Game 163.
Melvin is under contract through 2018. I’ll be surprised if ownership is willing to pay two managers for two years.
Regarding the blow up, I’d also say Semien has about a half a year left to show he’s a major league shortstop. I suspect they won’t be able to keep Barreto in AAA all year, and Semien just hasn’t shown yet that he can be above average at the position.
Semien’s future has to be at 2B. He’s cut his number of errors almost in half and maybe he will improve a little more there, but he’s just not going to gain arm strength or significant range. Meanwhile Barreto is on the horizon at SS, while Wendle and Pinder (and Muncy) are still long shots to hit well enough to be major league regulars.
He’s going to need to hit better than he has to make it at either position.
he needs to hit better than sogarg
Roach. Roach? Roach??
I’m definitely in the mood for a youth movement, and Olson and Nunez have flashed some skills in the past. But they were both been pretty poor this season in AAA.
Olson: .235./335/.422
Nunez:.228/.278/.412
Nunez also has a spotty defensive reputation, so that’s fun.
Bad news for the Browns.
In response, Hue Jackson is seeing how many draft picks he can trade to get Peyton to come out of retirement.
maybe football is not for people made of glass?
MAybe Hue can get Carson Palmer from the Cardinals for another 1st- and 2nd-round pick.
Heh heh.