For the second straight series the A’s face a team needing a series sweep to keep their faint AL Wild Card hopes alive. The last time the A’s visited The K there were a lot of fireworks between Brett Lawrie and the home squad. I sense a bit more lethargy this time. Showers and thunderstorms are in the forecast the entire time the A’s are in KC.
All four games start at 6:15 CT/4:15 PT. I suppose the early start is to get the kiddies home at a reasonable hour on school nights. The added benefit would be, if folks have to come straight from work to the ballpark they are more likely to buy $10 burgers and sausages.
Detwiler on the mound for the A’s tonight, then MLB.com has Mr. TBD making three consecutive starts. I don’t know if any of the regular beat reporters are on this trip, certainly Slusser is not, but FK is here for all the incisive dissection of BoMel’s strategy. So, this should be great fun! Of course, feel free to discuss the 49ers or the lasting effects of pneumonia as well.
What percentage of the Royals are deplorable?
Yes?
Thanks, and go As.
Counting Butler?
By the way, the ESPN commentators for that Rams-Niners game tonight are Chris Berman and Steve Young. I recommend your choice of music instead.
are we linking arms? All lives matter style?
Too late to fly in the Canadian Tenors?
back back back back back back back gone
It was definitely Khlobbered. “And that ball is wet” is much better in baseball than in golf.
Hooray! Khrush is the anti-Butler, the acquisition who did much better than expected at a reasonable price. He’s like the bearded Spock.
His homers are super cool. Just wish he was good at another thing too.
What GM said. Jack Cust minus 100 points of OBP doesn’t do much for me.
oh wow. i never thought of that.
Whit Merrifield is the name of a person who wears a bow tie on a Fox News panel.
I was thinking, Morton Kondracke’s love child.
I’m not listening to Vince but I’d bet on a “Shutdown Inning” invocation there.
along with a “step on the throat”
yes he did
Brooks.Pounders.
Sounds like a porn star.
Charles Woodson is wearing a three-piece suit with an ascot, puffy pocket square, and sneakers on the MNF halftime show.
This business of the 16-man pitching staffs with matchups starting in the fourth inning needs to end, maybe even as part of the new CBA. It used to be that teams only added 3 or 4 players to the MLB team for September. The other night I heard the Mets announcers talking about 37 players being in uniform and the D’bags apparently used 13 pitchers in a game.
Down goes Wash.
when do the A’s start to get thrown at?
Ventura pitching tonight…
Yep
Tell me “Detwiler started and went 4 innings and then it was Coulombe for the 5th and 6th”, I’m not thinking a 9-run lead is in the range of reasonable outcomes.
And now Neal for the 7th. They need to get Wendelken into this game so he doesn’t die a virgin.
Well now we absolutely must have Wendelken pitch the 9th. The best thing would be, it would be over in 30 seconds.
Neal already had a 3-inning save. That’s as bad as the Adam Dunn thing, Bob.
or I suppose they knew ned yost would be managing lie its the world series and he only has relievers on his roster
OF is Muncy in LF, Alcantara in CF and Eibner in RF.
IF is Healy at 3B, Semien (WTF?) at SS, Wendle at 2B and Olson at 1B.
Battery is Neal and Maxwell.
It’s a lovely March 7 afternoon on this split-squad day out here in Surprise.
Good old Fall Training.
Semien can rest when he’s retired, apparently.
I’m expecting #93 to trot out to shortstop in the bottom of the 9th. Maybe Walt Horn. Or Will Ferrell, whom I have in fact seen play shortstop for the A’s.
according to bomel, when he is on paternity leave
The useless Cardinals are getting no-hit by Kyle Hendricks through 8 innings.
1. No-hitter broken up by lead-off HR.
2. Joe West decides that people hadn’t noticed him enough tonight so he ejects Maddon.
3. Click – hello, 49ers.
Colin Kaepernick – Novak Djokovic
Separated at birth?
Lose some 14-3, win some 14-3.
In what world would Case Keenum be considered an NFL quarterback?
^Case Keenum^Blaine Gabbert
Also did these come from the same random-QB-name generator that produced Blake Bortles?
Dunno, but if they did the face-generation software from Blaine Gabbert did one HELL of a good job.
Right now, in a close match, Keenum is managing to out-suck Gabbert.
OK, now it’s not close at all.
I’m thinking L.A. should give St. Louis one last chance to take its team back.
I just posted the same on fb. In fact, they may want to send them all the way back to Cleveland.
If so, can we stick the Raiders on ’em?
I’m glad they didn’t feel obligated to throw Goff out there to get destroyed.
Shaun Hill is still an NFL starter.
Thanks, and go As.
Berman is making me think that Ray and Vince are not all that bad.
It’s pronounced “drone” you shitbird.
Marble mouth.
Kevin Harlan!
He’s the greatest.
I thought he was gonna be mad, but he said he was proud of me.
This hardly counts as even a slap on the wrist.
IMO the announcement at the beginning of the game should be “Any spectator going onto the field or interrupting play in any manner will automatically be hit with the Taser is front of all these people, ejected and subject to arrest.” The cops somewhere did that to one of these morons and there was an outcry about it, but I was definitely pro-cop on that one.
What exactly is the online course I wonder.
“Idiots on the Field: Hilarious but Deadly” narrated by actor Troy McClure
(You might remember him from such online courses as “Alice’s Adventure Through the Windshield Glass” and “Locker Room Towel Fights: The Blinding of Larry Driscoll”)
hee
Oh man. If I were drinking, I’d have done a spit take.
Police brutality as deterrent? No thanks.
Opinion was divided in the incident I was remembering. Shane Victorino and Tony La Russa agree with me.
That in itself should make you reconsider.
I don’t know. Low charge shock? I could get behind. But it’s somewhat circumstance dependent. I don’t see it as brutality. Definitely shouldn’t be shot. Or bean bagged. Or rubber bulleted. But a little zap to remind you you’re an idiot and are grossly trespassing? I support that, company notwithstanding.
Yeah, the threat of arrest, jail time and/or fines should be enough. Arrest of course implying police brutality anyway.
The over/under line for the October 9 game between the Bills and the Rams should be in single-digits.
Pray 4 Celtic
about that.
Thanks, and go As.
Barca dropping a league home game to Deportivo Nowheresville last weekend was not a good development for Celtic.
Robbie Keane’s boyhood club!
Thanks, and go As.
….
Thanks, and go As.
Some of these goals have been really, really good.
Suarez is FKing ridiculous.
Thanks, and go As.
Stop. They’re already dead.
Thanks, and go As.
They’re playing like they’re dead.
Scottish football is a joke.
It’s pathetic to see Marlins Guy having to settle for an A’s-Royals game. I’m almost expecting the guy with the rainbow wig to come sit down next to him.
Every Jharel Cotton start is an event.
Dang it Marcus
And Cotton gets Semiened in a big way.
He had a look on his face after the error like “where are these major league shortstops I’ve heard so much about.”
(playing second today)
There may be a spot on this list waiting for Khrush Davis.
Currently at 37 HR, 116 wRC+, .342 wOBA.
Using wOBA instead of wRC+ really punishes the more recent players compared to those playing in the dinger-friendly late nineties and early aughts. Although the flip side is that some of those older seasons wouldn’t be hitting 40 HRs in today’s environment.
Mark Reynolds 2011 didn’t meet the 40 HR criterion, but is also similar (37, 116, .350), and even more impressive when combined with the 20 runs below average defense at 3B to make him close to replacement level overall.
40 HR, .123 wRC+, and .351 wOBA now. I’d say he had a decent week.
Four additions to that list for this year:
Davis – 42 HR, .349 wOBA, 123 wRC+, 2.6 WAR
7th worst all time by wOBA.
Trumbo – 47 HR, .358 wOBA, 123 wRC+, 2.2 WAR
9th worst all time by wOBA.
But considering the extra 5 homers, arguably even more one-dimensional than Davis.
Chris Carter – 41 HR, .346 wOBA, 112 wRC+, 1.1 WAR
Tied for 3rd worst all-time by wOBA, 6th worst by wRC+.
And with terrible defense to boot.
Todd Frazier – 40 HR, .326 wOBA, 102 wRC+, 2.4 WAR
Worst all time by wOBA, 2nd worst by wRC+.
Dammit Vogt, that looked like an out. Nice performance by the young guy, but he’s deprived of the chance to join the pantheon of A’s pitchers who have gained wins in their first two starts (most recent two: Bobby Cramer and Vin Mazzaro).
In Cramer’s case, those were the only two wins of his career…which is why I was emphatic above about giving Wendelken the only chance of his life to record the final out of a game and walk off the field getting all the handshakes.
But still no losses for Cotton…thanks, Yonder.
KC fans booing. Music to my ears.
I’m afraid the Defending World Champions have officially succumbed, with the 2016 A’s driving the final nail in.
Yeah, those happy Plains folk sure turned surly fast.
did he really fake to third?
yep
One win needed to
defer until next yearavoid a 100-loss season, 18 chances to get it.FK the Royals
glorious
I sneered at the Mariners’ wild card chances the other night but now they seem headed for their 7th win in a row after that grand thlam by Theth. Also, it’s a little early to bring it up but Taijuan Walker, who has driven them nuts with his performance/potential ratio, is pitching quite well in this game.
JINX!
I want more of Ryan Rowland-Smith doing the analysis. Now THERE’s an idea, bring in Travis Blackley as Fosse’s replacement.
Poop! (Pitch count was probably too high anyway.)
“Driven them nuts” to the point that they finally gave up on him.
The Gnats reenactment of the A’s 2014 season continues.
oh my
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha … that 5-run 9th was a beauty.
Schimpfed
Saw Steve Mariucci while out at dinner at Pican last night.
I imagine he was reliving his glorious 6-6 season at Cal that propelled him inexorably to NFL superstardom.
But that was still a breath of fresh air between the Gilbertson era and the Holmoecaust.
It was for about a month. Then they lost 6 out of 7 to close the season.
Until this season, he was the last Niners coach capable of running an offense.
Yep. Firing him was worse than firing Harbaugh.
Thanks, and go As.
It was damned refreshing to see my team operate like a competent (though still flawed) NFL offense.
No delay of game penalties, no first quarter dive runs on 3rd and 8, etc. etc.
Exactly.
The QBOTF is not on the roster right now. Sunshine looked pretty bad. I think you write off Kaepernick until he’s 100% fully healthy, and even then I don’t think he is the answer going forward either.
The good thing is, IMO, the quarterback should be one of the LAST pieces to the puzzle. Surround him with a good team and he’ll be fine. The O-Line is better than its been for awhile, the RB Corps is solid, etc. The WRs need help ,though.
Thanks, and go As.
were you at the godawful lasershow birthday party at pican last night? because there seemed to be a godawful lasershow birthday party at pican last night. (and i felt bad for anybody who showed up to just have a nice quiet nonlasershow dinner.)
There was nothing like that going on at Pican while I was there. We left around 830.
hm… maybe that was monday night? i go by that corner almost every evening.
and i’m confused every day.
I was thinking, maybe 2017 is the year I will kill two birds with one stone by going to Houston and Arlington on one week-long trip.
Nope. Six separate road trips to Texas, again.
Hunh, I hadn’t pegged you as a masochist until now.
I hope you enjoy the Texas invasion this Saturday.
MLB did somehow manage to give the A’s a single-state road trip, in June with 4 games at Tampa Bay and then 2 in Miami.
The A’s aren’t really being picked on with regard to Texas. The Angels also make 6 separate trips there. The Mariners make 5, with one trip to both cities.
Including a scheduled doubleheader in TB. I might be tempted by that if it were literally any other park.
And I’ve been to the Trop to see the A’s, when Mom lived in Sarasota. The appeal of that trip would be that a Florida visit is dirt-cheap in June and no need to buy tickets in advance. New York (Mets)-Toronto goes to much more interesting cities but that would be way expensive, and also it’s after the All-Star break by which time the A’s may be at least 20 games under .500.
Read the thread, Ed.
I’m sure there will be a lot of burnt orange around, bur fortunately on the northside we don’t get too many of the visitors.
The Rays have a June 10th scheduled double-header with the A’s.
LOLGiants. Nice spot to get picked off there.
They are so 2014 A’s.
They would have to go 11-6 in their remaining games to have a 2nd half winning percentage (almost) as good as the 2014 A’s.
Wow. That’s incredible.
they’ll still make the playoffs because the cardinals are terrible. and miami, uhg
The Padres did their job, now the Cards need to come in and not FK it up.
While they’re not flailing as badly as the Giants, the Cardinals haven’t exactly been setting the league on fire either.
Mets (77-69), Giants(77-68), Cards(76-69) all lost today, so 86 wins or so will probably be enough for the two wild cards. The Mets have the easiest schedule (Twins, Braves, Phillies x 2, Marlins). The Giants probably have the hardest with the head-to-dead vs. STL, and two against the Dodgers. But I still fear them sneaking in, and then getting hot in the playoffs.
The Cards lost two of three to the Cubs, the Mets lost two of three to the Nats, and both teams managed to gain a game on the Gnats in the process.
read the thread, ed
Wendle is a singles machine.
Whoa, nice take by kHRis!
Softest double imaginable. Good stuff though.
The half-Semien looked to have been somewhat harder.
Big enough sample to say that Healy can hit in the bigs?
I believe so
He definitely looks like a hitter up there. He’s got the good face or something.
Eno Sarris has an explanation for his sudden hitteryness.
That was quite a “slide” by Healy.
Didn’t stick the landing. 2 points deduction.
Things just seem brighter since Butler was released. Food tastes better.
Manaea’s stache has potential.
Nasty put-away pitch. Manaea looks good.
And there’s our obligatory beaning.
Fuck those guys.
It’s just as well that this season was the Royals’ last gasp at success until their next window of contention opens in 2041.
I think it is time that I go find Joe Posnanski’s reply to me on a FB chat he did about how the Royals Bullpen ensured they were going to be very good for the next several years. He shockingly didn’t believe my contention that BPs are fickle and cannot be the base of your long term success. (Since we were in the middle of #TD I felt confident in my theory..)
did they show the dust up on TV?
“dust up.” Yeah. Mostly just jabbering.
As long as we’re rebuilding, can we dump these road caps? They just don’t look right with the grays.
3 walks for Khris Davis. What is going on.
An updated version of the September salary drive: With 3 BB in 4 PA tonight, Khris’ OBP is exactly .300.
This series is fun.
The only other time this year the A’s won 2 games in a series by “blowout” as defined by B-R (5+ margin) was against the Giants, with 8-3 and 7-1 wins. I’m defining a series as consecutive games vs. the same team as the first of those was in SF and the other was 2 days later in Oakland. In between those two, the A’s also won 13-11 in SF.
Maximum losses = 99.
Visions of Scott Brosius {shudders}
the yankees winning the world series would be FANTASTIC!
I would actually laugh my ass off.
big spenders!
must resist pinstripe joke
Huh. In my mind, the Yankees were way out of contention. They are not.
Their playoff odds on fangraphs went from a low of 2.3% on Sep 3 up to 18.3% on Sep 10. Currently back down to 9.4%. They do have a shot, but there are three teams ahead of them in AL East, which is pretty tough.
They could some more DHs.
NFL bans custom Harambe jerseys
OKAY WAIT WHAT THE FUCK LEO HAD A STROKE???
fuck this. :(
Thanks, and go As.
Little trash can robot DGAF.
wish i had time to read the whole thing.
wish i had time to do the same thing to children’s movies i haven’t seen myself. i mean, someone please explain to me the whole SPACE VALKILMER thing…
Who?
West Wing.
Thanks, and go As.
Season 5 is incredibly sucky.
Yeah when I read Mike’s comment last night I frantically searched sports news sites to find out what happened to Messi.
I thought DiCaprio.
That’s what I thought too.
i knew. we all have our WW crushes (donnatella!) and when MV showed his card recently i was all, huh, solid choice.
The Flamingo!
the jackal?
Please, no
Tuck your damn shirt in, Kendall. You look like a slob.
Tech update/facepalm:
The phone came with Android 6.0 Marshmallow installed. I plugged in Chromecast and streamed MLB.tv to the
85-inch46-inch TV and it looked great. I went ahead and signed up for the free trial of Sling and that streamed well through Chromecast as well. I decided to give Sling an extended test by watching the Texas-Cal game that way on Saturday.Today I got the notification that Android 7.0 Nougat was available. I didn’t think much of it, if I’d bought the phone a few weeks later it would have come with Nougat anyway. So I went through that update process.
So…Nougat breaks the Sling app. Splash screen, then death. I see through some searching that they know of the “issue” but there’s no ETA for a fix. The MLB.tv app works fine on Nougat. Meanwhile, I can watch Sling on my computer monitor but not through Chromecast.
I’m glad they offered that 7-day free trial.
Remind me which phone?
Thanks, and go As.
Nexus 5X
Hrm.
I got nothin.
Thanks, and go As.
There are a few threads on Reddit about this (example). It’s not my phone, the OS or my own stupidity (which was my initial assumption); it’s that Sling hasn’t updated their app. If I’d realized this was an issue I wouldn’t have proceeded with the Nougat update because I really did want to test Sling.
Yeah it makes sense, it’s just very odd — the N preview/beta has been out for literally months. It’s a huge surprise that Sling magically broke with the update, like nobody working at Sling has a Nexus?
Thanks, and go As.
I confirmed this directly by chat with Sling…the updated app is “coming shortly”. I’ve downloaded a few other apps that allow me to stream by authenticating with DirecTV (WatchESPN, Fox Sports Go and others), NOBODY else seems to have a problem with 7.0, so Sling’s ass is in one as far as I’m concerned. I cancelled that free trial.
There is just something a little rinky-dink about Sling’s whole operation and technology. Everything feels a little underbaked and half assed. Not unlike their parent company’s satellite product, actually, which I used to have back in the day.
Yeah, what GM said.
There’s really no excuse to not be ready for a major OS upgrade on day 1.
That said, it’s a fantastic idea.
Thanks, and go As.
Wow, this is quite the implosion. Last Thursday the Royals were 0.5 game ahead of the Mariners and both had upcoming series against the A’s. Two roads diverged.
Country Butthead has two RBI in his first two PAs for the Yankees.
THANKS BILLY!!!1!!1!
Healy hit the shit out of that homer. My goodness.
5th longest in MLB this year if you believe twitter.
Thanks, and go As.
Nice try blaming the lights, Ray, but he just plain missed it.
This series has been amazing. The tasty dill pickle alongside this shit sandwich of a season.
It’s going to take a while to find the 4-game series sized Green and Gold Broom. It must be somewhere way, way in the back of the storage room in the garage.
Clear out some room back there so we can put away the Royals playoff hopes.
A measure of the Royals’ quit factor is that Mengden is under 13 pitches per inning. He’s almost invariably been in the 18 to 20 range.
They mentioned in the first game that these were the two lowest-scoring teams in the AL, with the A’s 38 runs behind the Royals. They are now within 2.
Three-run Semien caps it off.
I don’t think the dismissal of Butler put much of a dent in this team’s long-term problems, but for this week it feels like there’s a lot of weight off everybody’s shoulders. I bet Melvin celebrated the most of anyone.
fat joke.
Thanks, and go As.
They aren’t letting Wendelken finish and get the handshakes but he does pitch in a MLB game which his team wins…barring the Team Dynamite performance of all time.
Overton doing his darnedest.
this reminds me of the overton game I went to
A taste of the Arlington series to come.
Andeux-friendly bout of TNF tonight…
My god these uni’s.
Fire Rex Ryan.
(Also fire whoever is responsible for those unis.)
Whoa.
The niners crowd will “I-told-you-so” over this one.
I was OK with Roman, but didn’t like Rex, when they were both hired. That hasn’t changed much. The offense was pretty good last year, awful in week 1, and OK again last night. Meanwhile Rex’s defense has been a mess. Plus firing your coordinator in week 2, whether justified or not, reflects very badly on the head coach’s management.
Roman is a fall guy IMO.
Thanks, and go As.
Pretty insane to do it this early in the season.
The Oregonification of the NFL continues apace.
Did Phil Knight ghost write that? How can anyone call those grotesque green Seahawks unis the best of that sorry lot?
The Raiders whites aren’t so bad, they more or less look like the road unis they wore in the 70s.
The white for the Raiders seemed like a weird choice for me. Like when I think Raiders I think none more black. So the white seems odd.
The Seahawks are horrible. I sort of liked the Vikings. The Broncos are dull, but I’ll give them a pass if they are indeed using the old snorty horse helmets.
Some of those aren’t that bad, but the thing is NFL uniforms should not have jerseys the same color as the pants unless they are both white.
I guess for the real A’s 2014 effect the Gnats have to make the play-in game, lose Posey early to injury, take a big lead, and then have the starter/bullpen/back-up catcher implode and lose it in extras.
also, have a team with their exact W/L record in the opposite league’s play-in lucky-bounce their way game after game into undeserving world championhood.
but hey, if all these events cause even one SF fan to suddenly stop GAF, we’ve all won just a little bit, haven’t we?
If Trump’s apparent new position of “Hillary started birtherism and I put it to rest” doesn’t convince the political press and non-Fox cable news to finally treat him as a delusional nutbag, nothing will. Nothing could be more easily provably as bullshit. Nothing.
This is so very David Brooks.
Saved me a click.
He seems to think overly highly of himself.
ROYn Healy is so bad.