This was the Arlington trip I should have taken. I bet I could dump 8 or 9 of these pounds I could stand to lose over the four days.
My prediction of a Brett Anderson DFA after last week’s game in San Francisco failed to materialize, so Brett survives to throw slop for at least one more game.
The scheduled matchups, with all games at 5:05 Pacific:
Tonight: Anderson vs. Cole Hamels
Tuesday: Montas vs. Mike Minor
Wednesday: Jackson vs. Martin Perez
Thursday: Cahill vs. Big Sexy
The A’s do need to make a 25-man roster move to reinstate Montas from Nashville, so if Brett sucks tonight…
With apologies to Raiders fans for Bill’s Broncos jersey:
I’ll be joining for the second series of the trip, enjoying that Colorado Bluebird Sky at Coors Field over the weekend.
I mean, sure, I guess. Less complicated than set up/closer by committee, but probably more likely to cause stress on the bullpen.
Worst shower I ever took was in austin in july.
Maybe you should have taken Austin off while in the shower?
How much does Semien over Simmons discredit Chapman’s enormous lead?
counting stat? Didn’t simmons miss a lot of time?
Simmons has played eight fewer games than Semien. I think the defensive metrics just really love Marcus this year.
In Soviet America, Marcus really love defensive metrics this year.
well they are essentially tied, so that may explain it
Yeah, but Simmons is Simmons and Semien is Semien.
But what if actually, Simmons is Semien and Semien is Simmons? Makes you think.
Would it though? Pinder’s place on the list is pretty impressive given his playing time.
Pinder is having a very nice season. Nicer than I fully realized.
Career OBP vs. Hamels is now .917.
Olson’s saved a lot of Semien’s throws this year, like that one on the DP.
This is a good point. Looking at Semien’s UZR components, his range has always been about average but he was killing us with errors (mostly throwing errors, I think?). So he is a good candidate for defensive “improvement” by getting a big 1B who can pick em.
That said, UZR also thinks his range is much better this year — but that could just be noise.
Does Chapman’s absurd range help or hurt Semien’s metrics by taking away some of his harder chances? For example the play last night where Chapman charged in front of Semien on a short grounder and made the play.
I think the bigger factor is the shift. Sure feels like he has fielded a ton more balls in the shift this year. Did he shift to the other side of Lowrie before or would he play up the middle?
Not that one.
What’s the definitive Brett Anderson Arlington start? I have vague memories of some epic disasters, but no particular event pops to mind.
Already angry at this ump.
I don’t care how hot it is, Rougie. Button your damn shirt.
Whoa!
I can’t imagine who would see enough in Hamels to trade for him at this point.
The Mets?
That was exactly what I expected.
Great now I’m invested in the outcome of this game. Better pitch well Brett.
My 18-1 loss plan isn’t going to happen, but this is the ballpark of Wild Alcoholic Dreams and who better than Brett to cause them.
It begins.
Christ, stop throwing the changeup.
Gold gloves for both Matts
Marcus’ TOOTBLAN streak is intact.
WTF CHALLENGE IT
Yeah, Adam didn’t buzz in there soon enough.
I probably say this a lot, but never has a 5 run lead in the 3rd feel so ominous
Brett still has a shot at a Quality Start, considering pitch count. It would be a stunning upset and I’d be shocked, but it could happen.
He did the damn thing.
HOOOOly Toledo, he did it. That most likely means I’m stuck with his sorry ass in Denver on Saturday night. Crap.
Let’s try this: Thanks for the memories, Brett!
He has made 7 starts and the A’s are 5-2 in those games, so I suppose we should enjoy the magic carpet ride as long as it stays airborne.
“Brett, you are pitching until 3 people in a row reach off of you or 4 runs score.”
Biscotty!
Do I get to start counting outs?
So clearly starting Brett Anderson in TX was a genius decision
It feels like the only way the Anderson saga can end is him pitching well enough into August such that the team makes no SP acquisition, whereby soon after both his arms and one of his ankles snap off.
You would think Billy wouldn’t be dumb enough to fall for the idea that Anderson can stay healthy.
If Brett could do this every 5 days I might give him piles of singles to fan out for photos
That was a laser.
With a big enough lead you COULD consider a BACG. That would almost ensure his arm falls off.
agree
I think it’s reasonably safe to give Hatcher an inning or two as well.
OK, maybe now. Maybe.
is wendelken still there? Trienen, petit, trivino, and familia should go to the clubhouse and hook up to athletic therapy
KD is ridiculous
I am starting to feel better about this game. What can you say about answering their comeback with a run of your own
These guys are ruthless.
I have never said this in TX before but can we bank 1 of these runs?
Asking the position player to get five outs, love it.
Aw, I wanted Beltre to pitch.
That the Rangers needed two position players to finish this one on the mound pretty much says it all for what they could expect in return for Hamels.
You’re saying they could expect two position players in return for Hamels?
Ya know, we’re only 6.5 games behind the Yankees now…
5.5
Just think where the A’s would be if they had Puk n Cotton
Are you out of your Cotton/Puk’n mind?
I thought the A’s could surprise this year, but one of the biggest reasons why was I envisioned Puk coming up mid-May and being a revelation. I also had hopes for Cotton that I mostly considered irrational. Them going down took me from optimistic to being wishful. And apparently, my wishing was even too pessimistic.
I couldn’t even be that optimistic. I figured Graveman was fairly reliable as a mid-rotation starter if healthy, Manaea could post a decent start maybe once out of three, and there just wasn’t much else in the rotation. Treinen was more stuff than results late last year and Trivino was an unidentifiable name on the 40-man roster. The lineup looked decent especially after they added Lucroy, but not nearly good enough to overcome a pitching staff chock full of Mike Oquists.
I was optomistic based on Cotton’s early spring. I though it could be a 2012 type year, but I didn’t think the angels would be so bad.
I mean, this really suck
Well obviously what we need is more guns.
This Ethan Sherwood Strauss article in The Athletic about how Joe Lacob and Peter Guber outmaneuvered Larry Ellison to buy the Warriors includes the following nugget from Guber on his earlier failed attempt to buy the A’s:
Strauss says in the comments that Lacob told him he separately tried and failed to buy the A’s. I can’t remember if we knew any of this before.
That motherfucker. Just when I was literally starting to pine for the good old days of Bud Selig, who wasn’t on his worst day as smarmy and insincere as Rob Manfred, I’m reminded that he on multiple occasions torpedoed my favorite baseball team.
Knew Lacob had made inquiries about buying A’s but never that Selig used specter of contraction as a way to get frat buddy Lew into the club. This is highly believable (much more so than the actual chance of contraction which always seemed unlikely).
I am reminded I once wrote
“Dear old Pi Lambda brother
Once in togas, now condos…”
https://www.athleticsnation.com/2006/12/6/94445/0625
First thing I thought of when I read it. That’s some grade A bullshit and I’m not a Lew hater. Honestly, I wonder if there’s even a chance of legal action that could accompany it for the previous ownership.
Selling to Fisher/Wolff instead of Guber probably cost the players’ union a hell of a lot of money over the last 12 years.
True. That’s some straight up ballsy collusion.
I think he’s arb-eligible this offseason so the question is whether to tender him a contract.
Should be cheap enough to take the risk, I would imagine.
I know it’s ingrained in us as former ANers (and, these days, pretty much just as sports fans), but I really think we need to stop thinking in these terms as fans. We need to stop legitimizing the dehumanized way that sports teams view their employees. Players get absolutely abused just by the nature of the system; we shouldn’t cosign it.
I think we can do both.
Eliminate Free Agency altogether as we know it. Been thinking about this lately. Just earmark 50% (or some fair percentage) of profit to players throughout MLB collectively. Base shares for each team by team wins + position overall in the league + playoff performance. Then split the team shares by a combination of time served in the league (career), on the team (season), and performance. You’d still maintain option years, etc. so players will be forced to be played, traded, or granted free agency. Add in force trade and no trade options for players based on their status and time served. A player like Gravemen then goes to the DL, gets paid some sort of share based on time in the league + medical expenses to heal. Once he’s ready he can rehab and either make the roster, get traded, or released. Fans can get attached to players again without worrying they’ll be gone in a year or two if they’re good, players don’t have to worry about the greediness of ownership, and performance will rule playing time and pay, as it should be.
Wow. That is an extremely interesting idea.
This is crazy!
hate to see this, but this is getting real, I am going to be so disappointed in september when the rays overtake the A’s
Three-man bench is back. (Barreto down for Montas)
That’s going to be fun in Colorado.
Looking at Nashville’s stats in response to this comment, I see that Maxwell has slid from primary starting catcher in Oakland until Lucroy was signed to .226/.284/.264 in AAA.
Vince just said that Ray Fosse was recruited to play football at Alabama for Bear Bryant. I did not know that.
lol
Rats
Not a good inning for Pinder
Glen, you absolute bastard.
He was just early.
For a second I thought that was going to land on the friggin roof.
Flipping over to root for the Giants like some kind of asshole.
It looks like the right night to squirt some WD-40 on Hatcher and put him to work. Talk about a dead roster spot. Hatcher threw 7 innings in June and 4 so far in July.
Manaea, Treinen, and Hatcher are the only pitchers who have been on the 25-man roster all year. He is the cockroach of the bullpen.
Given all the problems keeping a starting rotation together I guess they want to keep Bassitt stretched out to start at Nashville. He would make a lot of sense as a long reliever instead of Hatcher, but those guys don’t get to throw 80-90 pitches in a game with any regularity.
Oh man, this Rangers bullpen. I hope GM is checking back with the A’s game once in a while.
It is National Tequila Day, after all, and maybe this is the revenge for the Wild Alcoholic Dreams game.
I was afraid to say anything!
I won’t be fooled…
Holy Wild Alcoholic Nightmare
Ho, hum, another close game late I see. Been a see-saw affair, has it?
They.NEVER. Quit!
10-9?! Repeat that?
Well, not any more.
nobody knows their 10 codes any more?
Holy fking shit
This is house money right now. (yeah Aces, keep telling yourself that)
Martini might actually be good?
I was just thinking that. He can absolutely hit.
I love how he looks at the plate.
wut.
Don’t ask questions. Just let it happen.
Your 2018 Oakland A’s: Just let it happen
This would be an excellent time for Khris to turn a bad night into a good one.
There you go
As noted the other day, the Rangers announcers repeatedly point out how he has killed their pitching.
It is Arlington, though, and it ain’t over till it’s over.
Wow.
KD home run? Yawn. so predicable.
x2
x2
x3
It’s that 13-12 game against Twins that Gio started.
Familia now has two wins, after three games. Watch out Manaea.
That 8th inning spot is a pretty good place to pick up wins. Trivino has a few, and even Hatcher at the very start of the season.
Never. In. Doubt.
Ugh. If it is 2012 again can we find a way to avoid Verlander?
Red sox will have the best record? maybe cleveland beats them?
I’ll take an ALCS loss.
I just hope we don’t trade Cespedes again in two years.
Dee Gordon just did a stupid to let the Giants take the lead in the ninth.
yay!
Hearing footsteps coming up from behind.
SF takes lead in the 9th on Dee Gordon’s error.
Ha, glad I turned on this Mariners game.
Ugh, traveling Giants fans are obnoxious.
One of their fans went to the trouble to make a sign that said “Safeco? More like Outco.” Probably confused the mariners and led to that error.
1.5
Trevor Plouffe just hit a walkoff homer off of an outfielder in the bottom of the 16th.
It’s a heck of a time to be alive, man.
Just popping in to say that Phegley still sucks.
do you think sean murphy with a broken hand would be better?
BoMel thought he could sneak Hatcher in while FK was down.
Hey Bob: We’re in this game and yet I still see Hatcher throwing pitches.
that is what I thought
Here we go
Hello
I don’t want to see a pitch clock in the major leagues, but if we get one Buchter is one of the prime culprits. It reminds me of when Mets fans started chanting at one of their own pitchers, Steve Trachsel, “Throw! The! Ball!…Throw! The! Ball!”
We deserve another comeback after slogging through Jackson and Buchter today.
I thought at bat was lagging
over on freesteaksauce.net future travis is counting outs
can pinder hit for phegley?
Also
Then good luck finding somewhere else to play.
right?
Wow
Good grief.
Hahahahahaha
this team
It’s great fun, but getting behind by eight or four runs every night isn’t going to keep working a heck of a lot longer.
It’s a fair point and it’s why they need to plug holes in the rotation and CF, but I thought the same thing in 2012 re the walkoffs and that seemed to have worked out well enough in the end.
Really wish Ken was around to call this series.
On the TV side, Glen’s HR call may suck, but I still don’t mind hearing it four times a game.
Roxy’s call on last night’s KD special was a little too intense.
Give that man a four year extension seriously
Gained on New York and Houston.
Great season, whatever happens.
It’s an unending cavalcade of craziness, I am enjoying this ride a lot.
Ray’s reaction to that homer was pretty funny: “Oh no. Oh my god.”
Shouts to Martini for drawing that walk.
There had better be video.
i missed the radio comeback due to a conference call but I saw it on at bat.
Geez, this team.
We have so many home games left. Not sure if that is good or bad.
neither. I mean, the team is not going to win like this for the next 3 months. the starting pitching is going to get beat badly and the back end of bullpens aren’t going to all be soft.
I am hoping to stay tight with the mariners and hold off the Angels/rays. that way the septemebr 24-26 series with the mariners will be dispositive.
Another caught stealing tonight
Trivino is only one win behind Manaea.
OK, let’s Fking do this thing.
Let’s get Archer.
Thanks, and go As.
Hmm, that’s a pretty sweet contract he has. You’re giving up Luzardo plus a whole lot else for that.
Yea that might suck. Some way to keep Luzardo and Puk and then add Archer would be crazy.
Thanks, and go As.
Flipped on the flagship radio station this morning just in time to hear an ad (seemingly read by one of the station’s on air personalities?) for a penile enhancement supplement that “is known in the adult film industry as viagra on steroids.”
Oh man that sounds AWFUL who the heck would want something like that? Can you remember what it was called so I can be sure to NEVER use it.
Thanks
Thanks, and go As.
The good news is that you can probably find out for yourself by listening to the station.
The bad news is that you have to sit through people like Chris Townsend and Damon Bruce in order to get to the penis pill adds.
Nice typo.
The Rockies postgame show has an ad for something called “Big D” that involves treating ED with “acoustic wave therapy.”
This may explain my affinity for surf rock.
Big D
” frameborder=”0″ allow=”autoplay; encrypted-media” allowfullscreen>
Pardon?
Perfect timing
Awesome. Someone is going to need to archive this.
shoot, I was thinking of going monday.
When’d you shoot him?
What?
At what point did you shoot Leclerc?
I shot Leclerc?
Yes. When did you shoot him?
I shot Leclerc?
DeLeon may have the party endorsement but he’ll never beat DiFi to trade deadline scoops.
I couldn’t really read it. Was he suggesting that people needed to consult an atlas to discover where Los Angle ees was?
Just a standard-issue hidebound “baseball these days sucks because things are different” take, from more than 60 years ago, that could easily have been written by every male baseball writer in America in 2018 if you change a few of the nouns.
Astros are getting C Martin Maldonado from the slegs. He would’ve been a great Phegley replacement because not only can he catch the ball, he’s supposedly one of the best pitch framers in the league.
It pisses me off that the Angels recognize the need for a sell off
I enjoy that they’ve basically wasted Trout.
Thanks, and go As.
While spending a fortune on the dregs of Pujols.
that part is nice, and $21, 23 and 28M for upton’s 32-34 seasons
Bartolo looks round even by his standards.
Best shape of his life.
The Rangers are really playing for one run in the second inning in Arlington against Trevor Cahill. OK.
101° at game time, yikes
Absurd strike zone.
Gameday had that third strike to KD way outside. Exactly as far outside as the previous pitch, which was called a ball.
They may well sweep this series, but the RxR crossing warning bells are clanging because Brett’s start looks like it will be the only decent one.
Cahill is good, not worried about him.
He limps to the end of the 5th with a lead which is about all I expect anymore
Yeah Martini can hit.
Matt Joyce should take his time rehabbing.
So we don’t need Harper?
Thanks, and go As.
Harper needs us.
A Martin/Martini outfield would be fun.
Currently slashing .346 /.485/.538
Hamels -> Cubs
Thanks, and go As.
Bob got lucky letting Cahill face Gallo.
I really don’t understand why Glen can’t pronounce “Odor”. It’s O-dor. Why does he add an “oo” sound?
Because he’s stupid.
This strike zone is terrible.
98 riding in on the hands like that is a hell of a weapon.
Four triples!
Canha hitting for Fowler here says a lot about Bob’s opinion of Fowler’s alleged defensive ability.
This is definitely a bit more tortured than most recent A’s bullpen nights.
The fickleness of bullpens is the one thing that scares ne.
yup. And today it seemed like every pitcher couldn’t find the strike zone
4 more A’s runs please
I would go with Wendelken here to close it. It’s not ideal but it seems better than Treinen for the 3rd day in a row.
I blame cahill for this mess
if he gets profar, walk gallo
2 more months of this?
You love it.
I do. And I also started thinking “how many more games to we have against the Astros?”
6
get tix for the last three in anaheim
I think I may just do that.
august schedule has 3 thursday off. maybe trienan, famila, and trivino can rest then
Wow. Somehow this was the hardest win of the series.
Gonna need a solid nine innings at Coors from Manaea.
15 runs would help.
but really, you score 35 runs in 4 games, you don’t expect to tax your bullpen
i mean 41
We scored 41!
I’m on the plane in the morning, liking the view in the rearview mirror but not so much the one out of the windshield.
Colorado with dead arms is going to be tough. But then there is a week of getting fat on the tigers and bluejays
Dodgers for 2 is a mixed bag, the the angels, who should suck but seem to never. that leds into seattle and houston at home with an off day in between. If they can stay above minus 3 games back till then, we shall see. If they gain, they deserve to gain, if they fall, they deserve to fall.
after that its tx and minn, then back to houston and seattle and new york at home.
We will know the fate of the team at the end of the home NYY series september 3, 4, 5.
Watching the highlights, Glen says Chapman is “speeding around second and into third” as the camera shows Chapman doing nothing of the sort, clearly slowing down for the standup triple.
And then, incredibly, Ray corrects him a few moments later by passive-aggressively pointing out to no one in particular that Chapman was “clearly coasting” between second and third.
C’mon Billy, Martin just makes too much sense.
Harper
Thanks, and go As.
Fine. But only if they throw in Doo and Gio.
Say hi to Slusser, Soaker
@GM The Westin was reasonable on Priceline so I’m in the hotel and restaurant district just a few blocks from the park. May well see a few A’s, not just fans.
Coors Coors everywhere of course, but the Hop Valley stand in the LF corner does have draft pints of the Alphadelic IPA for a reasonable $8.25. There must be a local microbrews stand which I need to find.