A weekend set at the Coliseum vs. the woeful Tigers, who come in with a record of __XXX__ 41-98 ____ 42-97 (please check one).
Tonight at 7: Home Homer Bailey vs. Spencer Turnbull
Saturday at 6: Chris Bassitt vs. Jordan Zimmermann
Sunday at 1: Sean Manaea vs. Daniel Norris
98 losses entering play on September 6 is incredibly bad.
I didn’t realize Detroit was even worse than Baltimore now.
There has been some discussion about an NBA-style draft lottery in baseball.
I really hope so, but that doesn’t go far enought for me. All teams should be in the lottery every year
Yeah get back to me after they rig it so the Yankees draft Patrick Ewing.
I heard it once as a kid, and I have no desire to look into it further, so I will believe it forever as it confirms my bias, but someone said that when the NBA did the 1979 coin flip for the top pick of Magic Johnson, it was done on a three way call between the lakers, the losing team and the commissioner. the losing team said he heard cheering from the lakers before the commissioner announced the winner.
[cue Kay NBA conspiracy signal]
Nah.
If you meet the following criteria in consecutive seasons:
* Bottom 5 in payroll
* Bottom 5 in record (without making the playoffs)
* Top 5 in payroll (without missing the playoffs)
You get punished by:
First Season: No punishment
Second Season: You lose your first pick
Three Season: first 2 picks
Fourth Season: first 3 picks
Some of the worst Oakland teams after 139 games:
1977: 55-84, finished 63-98.
1978: 64-75, finished 69-93. That team was somehow 61-56 in mid-August but lost 37 of the final 45.
1979: 46-93, finished 54-108 (only 100-loss season in Oakland)
——-
1997: 54-85, finished 65-97.
Man those were some hard years after 1976 when Finley burned down Rome.
It was bittersweet coming back to the Bay Area to start at Cal in September 1979. I went to a few of those late September games with the “crowds” of 1200, which at the time were quite likely the A’s final games in Oakland before a sale and a move to Denver. Finley didn’t complete the sale over the winter and the hiring of Billy Martin looked like an absurd PR move, but that wound up being the thing that attracted Walter Haas and has kept the team in Oakland for the succeeding 40 years.
I feel like we haven’t seen Herrmann for a while – admittedly for good reason.
Stop hitting our guys you fking dipshits. This is ridiculous.
Enough of this shit!
Stop fucking hitting our players!!!
Heaven help the crappy team that takes a 8-0 lead in one of these games against the A’s. It’s gonna be about 6 HBP in a row.
A lot of these pathetic tanking teams are throwing up pitchers who really have no business being in the majors right now. The consequent wildness from these pitchers seems to have led to an increase in HBPs.
I’m not usually one for retaliation but at this point, you should let these young pitchers know that if you’re going to launch 95 at the general direction of the plate with impunity, it will affect their teammates when they hit. So if they’re going to be wild, at least they think about trying to be wild outside to batters.
Homer Bailey played years for Dusty in the NL, 100% he has been asked to hit someone.
Time to get Blackburn up. Homer’s going hunting
Dave Matthews is playing down the street tonight and coming through clearly in the night air. That’s live on SiriusXM though with even better sound. Better that as a soundtrack to A’s-Tigers the rest of the night than Ken and Vince.
a few notes:
Ken and Vince need to be taught how to say “Latinx” they are really tripping on the word and mispronouncing it.
Twice on the broadcast the guys have referred to “batting around” in the 2nd, which I agree with but and thankful FSU is watching from teevee now.
Coco is fun, but needs prompting.
Hah, I heard that on kitchen radio and silently fumed/
WAS thankful. I wanted to spare you that
Agree with Ed on Coco. Have caught an inning or 2 recently and he is better when he talks. But it seems like ken/vince have to poke him every few minutes to remind him to speak. And once or twice his comments had nothi g to do with the situation/conversation. But after Fosse on TV that isnt a big change for me.
Can someone pms take Antonio Browns electronics away for the weekend?
I’m now really unsure whether he’s just completely out of his mind, or is actively trying to get cut so he can sign with a good team instead. Or both.
The latter seems unlikely since until Monday the Raiders could cut him for conduct cause and he’d get zilch (though it would likely be litigated).
Actively trying to get cut sounds like the winner.
And it worked.
Our long (?) national nightmare is over.
It was obvious from the start that a player who couldn’t make things work on the perennial-playoff Steelers was a disaster waiting to happen on the Gruden Raiders Mach II, but I thought he might make it a few weeks into the season before things went to shit.
I was hoping escaping Roethlisberger would be sufficiently refreshing.
I don’t pay enough attention to know much about the talent, but the general culture surrounding that organization right now is screaming 2-14.
I will take the other chair and say I was actually surprised how well they handled this cluster. Typical Raiders response would have had half the team against the other half all over social media, the team offering AB some sort of bonus after the argument with the GM, and waiting 1 day too long to drop him and owing an extra 10M or so.
Now, they got themselves into this whole mess to start, so Im not putting up a “Mission Accomplished” banner or anything, but baby steps.
Well now he gets to torch the Bills twice a year.
Probably, although the Bills defense in general and secondary in particular are pretty good. They’ve built a really good supporting cast, while sticking to the theory that if you draft a quarterback high enough and call him a franchise QB, he will magically become good.
Four turnovers in the first half. Against the Jets. Petermanesque.
Wow, Frank Gore is still in the league. That’s quite a career.
I think he will have a HoF case when it is over. FB hall is a different bird.
Top five all-time in rushing yardage. Payton, Sanders, and Emmitt Smith were probably bigger stars, but if Curtis Martin made it, then Gore (with a significantly better YPC) should as well.
Anyway, 1-point win over the Jets. Super Bowl here we come.
Well, that was predictable.
Brown is long gone, of course, but they totally shut down Brady and the Pats offense (and got a great performance from Gore), and still lost. Sure would be nice to have a good QB.
I never thought I’d say this but Grossman should really be playing instead of KD.
I’m torn, Obviously Khris should not get meaningful at bats now, but I think he needs as much rop as possible to “figure it out” before being benched.
I had my Texas Instruments calculator out and sad to say, he’s not very likely to hit .247 this year. I think the number was something like 30-for-72 after yesterday.
Profar now has a higher batting average. With the same number of homers.
But he’s had 3 months of rope now and the games right now are too important.
Unfortunately this. And worse: you really cant put him on the playoff roster.
yeah, I know, I don’t want him in there monday
Comerica Park series thread has been returned to its rightful place in May.
This umpire is all over the place.
Hmmm, this is no longer a sea cruise.
Trying to wring a seventh inning out of Bailey was never going to work out.
Glen and Ray have been going on tonight basically saying that we have some combi of The Big 3/Five Aces starting now. I turned down my hearing aids.
Hendriks is going to have to pitch again with Petit and Treinen unavailable.
Even the crappiest team wins 1 out of 3…the A’s wouldn’t want the 1 to be a game where they blow a 4-run lead.
Diekman twice in one day…
why would you name your kid Joe?
Hes a ginger and you hope he scares people?
We could’ve really used Luzardo today.
Why do they keep throwing breaking balls to this guy?
Officially too much Diekman for one day
Mr. Diekman, I’d like to see you after class, please.
Bats are going to have to wake up.
Unbelievable
I just don’t understand the FO sometimes. Last year the bullpen was strong so of course they acquire like 5 additional relievers. This year the pen is weak so of course they acquire…Diekman.
#teamdynamite
This bullpen is going to have me waking up screaming at 4 a.m. in the middle of January.
Oh Jesus…KK just made me realize its Fucking Vanover behind the plate.
Lawyerballin’ season
sigh
Blackburn is throwing BP. Sad that this is what it came down to.
yup. the passenger
I may get SLF to have a favorite baseball player
Well that put a crappy end to a 13+ inning day
Went to bed before the Blackburn inning. Didn’t need confirmation of the obvious fact that he is not a major league pitcher. He should have been DFAd for Luzardo or even Harvey by now.
Hard to win a game where you can’t get any offense going outside of one inning. That said, that game is won if Petit were there because Melvin wouldn’t have foolishly left Bailey in.
that’s what i woke up thinking. the absence of petit (and to a lessor degree trienen) really hurt.
But as lenscrafters said, games are critical now. there is no time to make up for losses. Khris sits tonight, yeah?
He should, but he should have a month ago so I firmly believe he will be in the 7 or 8 hole tonight. I also believe he will be in the WC game and I will make some comment about how I wish Brown or Murphy or anyone was there instead.
And to be fair, I dont overall get upset with Melvin sticking with guys, especially guys who have been big for so long. But there has to be a point where you acknowledge something is wrong and adjust course.
I really worry this is not only impacting today, but is it hurting Krush long term too.
He is the opening day DH, sure. I am good with that, and I am also ok with playing him to this point, but if they can’t score against detroit…
My bad…6th tonight. Le sigh.
Yeah, My bad. I read a lineup from yesterday. Protip: dont use FB for your hot lineup info.
I can’t get twitter to load chrono. popular things still get pushed up despite me changing the settings and checking it weekly after I get pissed about being fooled by a 19 hour old tweet about sommething
I have a fun one. I get notifications on my phone that 1 person just tweetes. The tweets are usually that same 19 hrs old. And I dont know why I get notifications for the person-Ive done nothing different than every other follow I have done.
Very happy that Joe Thornton re-upped for one more go with the Sharks. Kinda baffled anyone would hire Ned Colletti to “bring a fresh perspective.”
This young Canadian woman is kind of bossing Serena off the court.
she sure is
There’s a little pushback. Serena needs to figure her serve out.
This match just turned awesome.
Well then
Too hot for the Hound. He wishes we had started at 7.
So that was the strangest double play ever.
But shoulda been an IF fly rule, no?
I don’t understand why that wasn’t an infield fly rule either. Deemed not a routine play, or some such?
I think the umpire’s reasoning was that it was clearly going to be a foul ball. Therefore there’s no reason to declare an infield fly. They do declare “Infield fly if fair” as FSU says below if it’s close to the line, but that one wasn’t close.
When it suddenly was no longer clearly a foul ball, Chapman could not catch the ball with the “ordinary effort” required by the rule.
I’m sure that was the explanation to Gardenhire. But it’s premised on accepting “clearly going to be a foul” on a ball that turned out to be fair.
Yes, that was the error in judgment part. If the ball could have been caught with “ordinary effort” if the infielder just stood where he started rather than taking a 40-foot detour into foul territory it should have been called an infield fly from the start.
Glen Ray and Dallas are not enlightening. In my day the umps would holler “Infield Fly Rule if fair.”
The Hound will be lucky to see the sun set tonight.
Wrong again.
Jurk store!
I don’t know how it is for the players, but the wind has Glen fooled on every ball hit in the air.
It’s nice that Cabrera is still having fun.
GOD DAMNIT ENOUGH!!
It’s Ramon!
So glad Laureano is back.
FK
OK, 3-run lead, I’m going to trust you guys with the rest of this one. The Golden Bears are playing a conference game on the road and they need every bit of support they can get.
Good luck with that.
Thunderstorm delay in Seattle, so I’m back for a while.
That game already had a fairly late start and has now been delayed for an hour and counting; it will still be going well after midnight. They have only played about the first five minutes of the first quarter.
Heh.
Thanks, and go As.
Chip Kelly is wishing that had happened in Pasadena tonight.
UNR wondering why it didn’t stretch down to Eugene.
I love the rose bowl swap meet.
Ha! Thank you! It was worth the wait! GrrrrRAH!
I turned it off when they settled for three near the end of the second quarter. Shame to miss it.
Thanks Hound, now we just jeed 12 more outs from the bullpen. This should be fun.
8 hits, 11 Ks, 0 walks. Around the zone indeed.
Shit…nice extra inning from Bassitt
It was fun while it lasted, Ramon.
Crap
And this will be part of the reasoning that we need to have Davis on the playoff roster.
Whatever’s ailing Ramon was there when he left the batter’s box. Hopefully just a sore toe.
Bat Olson
Now let Puk have a coupme of clean innings and then someone get a HBP pls.
Dammit Vince. if you say “chopped weakly to third” and then stop talking and stop what I loading the dishwasher and wait wait wait for you to tell me that chapman throws him out. I don’t expect that its a foul ball
Ed I had an “over…………but low” last night too.
Leg cramp for Ramon. Deep breath everyone.
In lieu of flowers…
After the absurd layoff, they’re starting to get Puk into a normal reliever rhythm. I like it.
Murphy looks so much better as a catcher than the others
Chances are the Bears will not outscore the A’s tonight.
GM I agree a out the rhythm, but would have liked a second inning.
OK Blake
Admittedly it was only the Tigers, but getting good Blake back for the run-in/playoffs would be a coup.
strikes are all i ask
When he has 3-4 consecutive good outi gs I’ll start to hope.
Finally some clarity – the Brexit flow diagram:
That’s a new one.
don’t skip what the portuguese caption adds that the translation doesn’t mention: …in order to promote cultural marxism.
[goes shopping for novelty band teeshirt]
Adorno&
Benjamin&
Horkheimer&
Habermas.
Why is everyone ignoring JD martinez’s sexual battery?
Yikes at King Felix’s line today. Don’t do this to him, Mariners.
Yeah, that’s too bad. It’s kind of amazing that the AL will quite possibly have four 100-loss teams and the Mariners won’t be one of them.
21 runs on 22 hits for Houston, 1 run on 1 hit for Seattle.
So you’re saying the Mariners were more efficient.
He will miraculously give us good innings in the second half next year after signing a minor league deal.
Or at least make sure we get a crack or 2.
Campy’s 1st pitch looked like Jurk stores throws to first.
This means 1 of 2 thi gs. I will take it to mean Campy did great.
Its not good to be this happy that KD got a hit.
Dang these Tigers sure can whiff.
Thanks, and go As.
Are you prepared for the arrival of Jesus?
Olson tossed that final out ball to Hendriks, but I hope it makes its way to the Tigers before they leave. Four World Series trophies, and now seven 100-loss balls on the shelf below.
Coco said his good-byes for 2019, with no commitment about coming back next year.
I don’t think this is Coco’s calling.
He had an interesting contribution yesterday. He said that on windy days at the Coliseum he would look at the tarps (he called them “the baggies”) to see if it was swirling in ways the flags wouldn’t show you.
He got better and had some good insights, I just don’t think he enjoys or feels driven to succeed at it.
Yeah, that last part sounds about right. There were long periods when the listener didn’t even know he was in the booth until Ken or Vince raised some topic. Somebody in management thought this would be a good idea last winter and talked him into it and he fulfilled his commitment but that was about it. I just don’t think there should ever be more than two voices on a broadcast but TPTB evidently think otherwise and it might be something like Hatteberg-Shooty-Chavez-Mulder on the TV side, same concept but rotate in a different person.
Looks like The Legend of Kyler Murray, Chapter 1, especially if they win but even if they lose.
A tie, unfinished business!
Catching up on the latest USMNT embarrassment…hiring the brother of the COO of US Soccer instead of Tata Martino is not looking any better than it did at the time.
why was trump hanging out with infantino?
GGG is a decent league coach. His stupid complex system doesn’t work on the international level when he doesn’t have months to drill it into players.
Thanks, and go As.
whole new context to good, giving, and game.
but clarifies months to drill it into players.
GGG needs only seconds to drill in lessons.
If Fiers is going to shit the bed, at least don’t take an hour between pitches.
Yeah, so maybe we don’t need a game thread for this series…