At least 44% of the reason I live in the East Bay is to avoid miserable summer weather (also 23% friends and family, 12% is not scary rest of America, 8% local sports teams, 7% outdoor recreation, 5% other quality of life, and 1% Rita Moreno.)
But at first pitch tonight it will be hotter at the Coliseum than it is in Arlington TX. This is unacceptable. We’ve had a pretty delightfully not-sweltering summer here so far but if there’s one thing I demand in life it’s that people in Texas be more miserable than me at every moment of every day.
Bassitt v Burke sounds like a tort precedent.
Fiers v Minor, a tragic tale of high school fireworks gone awry
Manaea v TBD, a helpful Scrabble draw
15 games in 17 days to settle the AL playoff picture. Should work out just fine so long as the boys stay hot. Except Bassitt who hopefully took a long ice bath this afternoon.
"Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
Alcohol consumption in this final series in that park will be in memory of Bill King…particularly in a Friday the 13th game.
And a full moon too.
Forecasts:
Saturday 5 p.m. PT: Oakland 79°F, Arlington 92°F
Sunday noon PT: Oakland 70°F, Arlington 95°F
Clay Wood’s outfield grass is spending an entire week under the deployed football seats in “dying man in the Sahara” mode though.
And Clay will get less than 24 hours with the grass before BP Monday.
Oh Gawd.
Wet snowflakes mixing in with the rain at Chateau Soaker right now…
I moved here to avoid miserable winter weather, but the summers are rather pleasant as well.
And you may be underrating “not scary rest of America.”
“Cost of living” and “traffic conditions” are notable omissions from his list though.
Just back from first extended trip to rest America and it was a lot scarier than I feared. Trump Confederate Gadsden flags on trucks and front fences everywhere. Every public place bristling with bearded unmasked burly (fat) guys. Saw at least five Q shirts or stickers. Except for Eugene it felt vaguely threatening every place we stopped in OR and WA. I’m not setting foot again outside of urban America for as long as I can possibly manage.
Meant to add, on the other hand, every person we actually interacted with was polite and helpful, including a tow truck driver we needed in a very remote place. And there way WAY fewer dangerous drivers than here on the home roadways.
I drove from Massachusetts back to Cincinnati about a week ago. In north-central Ohio (roughly halfway between Cleveland and Columbus) there were some bros in a tricked out Dodge Ram who started yelling at us on the highway, presumably because of our Biden/Harris and Warren bumper stickers.
Oly’s going so good right now his swing may be even more dreamy than his eyes.
Jurickson’s throws are getting worse somehow.
They’re both in the lineup so can’t Pinder play 2B and Profar OF? That can’t possibly be worse.
KD back
Confirmed
Yes!
I don’t really agree with the extent to which they’re going with Neuse over Barreto (I don’t believe in either of them all that much now or in the future, but have more hope for Barreto.)
I feel like Barreto may be one of those guys that has to bounce around a while and figure it out 5 years too late for his first team.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
defensive versatility makes that a real possibility
That defensive versatility is strictly hypothetical at this point.
The hype about Barreto at the time of the Donaldson trade seems like ancient history. Sort of like the prospect-maven hype about Profar.
I never thought barreto was going to be a first string regular even back then.
Hah!
@fsu. Property case. Totally different. Keep digging. You’ll never make partner that way
Laureano there has paid dividends
Again
Argh. Why must we start a pitcher made of wax?
He should bring a cold bottle of Gatorade out at the start of each inning and keep it behind the mound.
One of those big fans.
This game is on pace for 36 total runs. 33 was enough to cause wild alcoholic dreams.
Arithmetic series. 45 runs for the A’s.
And that’s why Chapman doesn’t get days off.
I adore Ramon.
I haven’t been paying enough attention the last few years, including this one. And forgot that he was actually doing really well before he got injured. I had in my mind “great potential” but not “kind of figured it out already.”
Looks like the rain wiped out the 2-2 tie in the third between Clelevand and Minnesota. They start over tomorrow with a doubleheader.
Doesn’t bode well for either team’s starting pitching for the next week.
Clevinger is through 8 for Cleveland in the opener, but he’s down 2-0.
Twins win
Starting the nightcap for Cleveland: Tyler Clippard
Gives up two-run homer and camera catches him yelling “FK!”
The Biebs fell apart in the sixth inning, Cleveland’s 2-0 lead is now a 2-4 deficit.
The Twins brought in Kyle Gibson in relief for some reason, and he immediately gave up a three-run bomb.
When in doubt, Wendelken
He had become irrelevant but that’s one heck of a long relief performance considering the early tone of the game.
I remain of the opinion that he is actually good.
Orioles over Tigers tonight in a game people should have been paid a lot of money to attend. Aaron Brooks, winning pitcher.
Odds are pretty good that one 100 loss team will make another team lose their 100th. I feel like that’s got to mean something.
Best night of the year* from the bullpen.
*Still an opportunity to fuck it up in the 9th.
I don’t think I want treinen or diekman next inning
Thank you Noisy!
And Marcus too!
Solid night for the rookies.
Welp. Hold on to your butts. Bad Treinen time.
I’m so tired of his shit. Would seriously think about non tendering him this offseason.
I’m trying so hard to think he can be a huge contributor to a 2020 World Championship but the evidence for that is sadly short. Whatever he did to reinvent himself over the 2017-2018 offseason, do it again, please.
reliever volatility tells me he’ll be great next year. same with lou.
I don’t think he’ll contribute to the 2019 world championship, but I am ok with him getting a full share
Pulling some velocity data from Brooks Baseball…
Fourseam Sinker
3/19 97.93 97.45
4/19 98.05 97.46
5/19 97.56 97.41
6/19 97.26 97.11
7/19 96.87 96.25
8/19 96.55 96.19
9/19 96.41 95.79
Average velocity by month has continued to trend downwards. He’s dropped around 1.5 mph from April, the high point, to September, which I consider to be fairly significant. For reference, Sean Manaea dropped around 1.3 mph average velocity from his high point last year to when he needed shoulder surgery.
Also, contrast Treinen’s velocity this year with that of last year:
Fourseam Sinker
3/18 0.00 96.89
4/18 97.78 97.27
5/18 98.25 97.89
6/18 98.91 98.62
7/18 98.21 98.24
8/18 98.65 98.52
9/18 97.98 97.60
There’s a nearly 3 mph drop between his high point in 2018 (June) with this year’s September. Whatever Hendriks did to gain about 3 mph in velocity, Treinen needs to do that as well. But I think it’s more of an injury issue with Treinen – there’s too much smoke around the elbow/shoulder issues he had earlier in the year and the velocity decline he’s been gradually experiencing.
The A’s will have to decide whether a reliever with so many warning signs – we haven’t even gotten into his control issues yet – is going to be worth the 8 million or so he’s due in arbitration next year.
Even if they decide he’s not worth it I’m pretty sure he will have some trade value at that salary, so I don’t see them non tendering. Profar will be interesting.
FK fucks sake, throw strikes, get outs. It shouldn’t be this hard.
Vince is going to have good time with this Stanford score.
Tough early sequence of games for Furd with @USC, @UCF and home vs. Oregon.
Cal is playing the opener of the East Bay vs. Metroplex doubleheader and having an easier time of it. The Bears are oddly playing DFW-area teams four years in a row: UNT this year, home vs. TCU in 2020, @TCU in 2021 and @UNT in 2022. The TCU games were scheduled when Dykes was the coach so that makes sense, but Dykes was gone by the time they scheduled the Mean Green and why they agreed to play a road game against them escapes me.
The Pac-12 pretty clearly is not very good, so Cal’s feeble offense fits well in the conference. The Bears might be able to manage 7-5 or 8-4; it would have to be on the strength of their defense.
Are those records or projected scores?
Fernando Rodney just hit Charlie Culberson square in the eye with a fastball. He was down for a while, but thankfully he got up and got into the cart under his own power..
The Braves manager got ejected because the umpire called it a strike. Culberson was squared around to bunt.
Rodney also turned a 1-1 tie into a 5-1 not tie.
How to describe Mike Fiers’ new slump-breaker facial hair? An octopus tentacle on half his face? A typography mishap? My imagination fails me. I think he’s been playing around with one of these:
WTF? The idea is that the Rangers hitters will be laughing so hard they’ll take weak swings?
On consideration I’m going with prehensile tail.
“the bass clef on victor borges’ william tell”
is that too specific?
“the you are getting sleeeeepy”
“the chinammon roll.”
Also, Dude, Chinammon is not the preferred nomenclature.
look, this isn’t a man who built the fu-man-chu here.
no vince, the rangers didn’t need major league talent back for mike minor.
Fiers ain’t right.
Seems like Fiers should have come out.
Oh good, Blackburn in Arlington again.
That would be “Change the Channel” Blackburn.
Rubbing forearm followed by sudden 3 MPH dip in velocity seems bad.
It’s not great.
In lieu of flowers, please send a starter?
Don’t worry, we added Luzardo before the 31st so… oh. We didn’t. Oh.
If Fiers goes on the DL, that lets us add Luzardo to the playoff roster.
I thought he had to be on the 40 man before August 31st?
Fiers needs 10 days on the IL
Oh duh. I’m confusing the in the organization vs 40 man rules.
Not a great inning for Phegley either.
I read a comment from Melvin the other day that made it sound like he knows Murphy is the #1 catcher now, but that they are giving him plenty of days off to protect his knee.
It makes sense. Aside from Phegley sucking and all at the whole catching thing.
Jonah Heim should get a chance in Spring Training to be Murphy’s backup.
hasnt since april
Puk, Wendelken, Luzardo not available tonight. Might need one of those two-inning Trivino throwback masterpieces.
who are three players not in the majors a month ago
Ugh, I HATE when our best two SP prospects aren’t able to help the shitty bullpen.
Thanks, and go As.
Second night in a row I was sure a HR was in their OF’s glove.
That was like an optical illusion.
Twins up 9-5 on a Sano grand slam.
Goody! That’s my reaction and also the name of the pitcher who served it up.
Why did fiers get pulled?
Broken beard.
Also, he was rubbing his forearm and his velo dropped into the batting practice range.
you can feel our concern
Off-season Tommy John, I’m sure.
Buchter…
Somehow his ERA is still < 3. He must have allowed like 3 times as many inherited runners to score.
4 inning game
4 hour game
why not both?
how do you walk sept 2019 khris davis?
angels should be fined for their linups v cle and tbr
Really trying to get another inning out of Buchter, eh?
just through mazara, yeah?
they really don’t trust trivino, hub?
Blackburn to Buchter to Trivino is not the preferred “we’re winning” bullpen rotation.
Slusser:
Scioscia is bunting runners over in the 5th. Makes sense as the only batters hitting better than 250 were the next two
New Scioscia will now make 15 pitching changes in pursuit of the last 11 outs and hope to bore the Rays into submission.
Hotter than Hell: The Matt Olson Story
Olsen’s jacks are usually no doubters but that one was a juiced ball special for sure.
I had to take off for a while at some point tonight and Blackburn’s appearance was the perfect excuse. Upon returning I’m glad to see the situation markedly improved…but the last few innings must have flowed like molasses.
Longing for Soria to start the 8th instead of Diekman. What a day.
Where is Soria, anyway? He hasn’t pitched on the road trip.
Seconding this. Not that I WANT to see him, but I just dont understand this bullpen anymore.
closing tonight?
8 days since he last pitched. For a guy who was pitching almost every other day, that means he’s nursing an injury.
10 day IL retoractive!
Ken mentioned an injury last night, I forget what exactly, and said he almost certainly won’t pitch in this series.
We’re going to end up with Kaprielian pitching the 7th inning of the WC game.
Matt Harvey’s still technically eligible.
Slusser reports this morning that it is “elbow soreness.”
TJS it is then.
I went on a 35 minute walk after lou had gone down 2-0 on his first batter, and now its only the top of eight?
“Diekman now a very good relief pitcher” – Ray, as the first batter smokes a double into the corner.
Diekman is the fucking worst.
still, daring doo by odor.
angels just scored on the old 2 out wild pitch
3-1 rays
that was an illegal slide, yeah?
After Fiers tonight I may have to reevaluate this, but I cannot stand the facial hair of the Rangers.
Magic number 11 vs. Cleveland, with 26 opportunities.
Morton vs. Manaea on October 2?
I went to Twitter looking for Joakim Soria info, and found this weird bot, which led me to this odd page.
Fiers said he’s felt this numbness sensation this year twice before, and last year a couple times.
Cool, cool. So Tommy John or Thoracic Outlet?
The Reds allowed one hit and no other base runners to the Diamondbacks last night. They also lost the game.
Trout’s done for the season. Foot surgery.
Trout, Ohtani, and Upton
Albeit only 5 games in, 3rd place in the Premier League is closer on points to the bottom than top of the table.
Manaea is showing a lot of chest today.
I’m thinking of using my A’s Access to go to Wednesday’s day game without an actual ticket.
Haven’t done this before, and can’t really find any info on how it works.
– Is there a special gate you go in, or can they scan your badge anywhere?
– I remember they changed this from “Treehouse Access Only” to whole ballpark for the last month, but if we want an actual (legal) seats, I remember there was some upgrade option through the ballpark app:
– I thought we were supposed to get one free upgrade (FSU) per year. Is that right? Is there any choice of seats using that?
– If not, how does the cost of a paid upgrade compare to just buying something cheap on stubhub?
I think you can now go in any gate but not 100% sure. Haven’t used the upgrade function, just gone into the Treehouse (partly because it’s easy from the BART ramp) and then just FSU my way through the game.
Since Aug the Treehouse pass is all you need to enter the Coliseum via any entrance. Don’t know full upgrade terms but I suspect they only get you into a section you can just sit in yourself anyway.
SeMVPien
I was thinking about the MVP race in light of Trout being out. Bregman is second in WAR (both versions) and will probably win now even if he doesn’t quite catch Trout. Chapman is 5th in bWAR, 7th in fWAR, and seems famous enough now that he should finish in the top 5. Semien is 3rd in both versions, but he’ll probably finish in the lower part of the top 10 in the voting.
I expect to be angry at the number of votes given to DJ LaMahieu.
Yeah, he’s one of the guys I figure will undeservedly finish ahead of Semien.
Positional versatility!!!!
(ignore bregman)
SB&HBoR!
Seth Brown is keeping this Ted Williams impression going through multiple Soaker Units.
Manaea v glasnow in oakland would be cool
I’d rather face Cle.
yeah, I don’t think they have it in em
New scioscia better let sandoval pitch one more inning
nope
% chance of the Angels’ pen and defense holding a 5-run lead for four innings?
16%
1-2-3 inning for Noe Ramirez. Bumping this up to 18%.
6 outs left, 30%
Three run homer. Move it back down to 15%.
Buttrey is awful.
When we played them earlier in the season I thought he might be their best reliever. Which isn’t saying much, but still.
nice move “smith”
Generic bad Angel makes generic bad decision.
There’s no chance the slegnA hold it here.
That’s probably my last successful reverse jinx of the season.
I don’t believe it.
The stoic guy with the giant ZZ Top beard behind home plate is awesome.
That is NOT an error on Olson. Come on.
Yeah, that should have been a hit.
That high fastball is devastating.
Murphy has three hits in this series, two of them doubles, thanks to the Rangers replacing Beltre with crap.
After all the jokes about it being like trading for an ace at the deadline, adding Manaea and Luzardo (and Murphy, and maybe Puk) to an already very good team really is pretty exciting.
Great timing for this comment.
Way to jinx it all!
Murphy’s offense has been way ahead of his defense, which is surprising.
Some nice blocks in the Odor at bat.
The kid is poised.
Jesús saves.
90-60. On pace for another 97-win season, with 100 wins not at all out of the question given the schedule. Pretty good.
Goodvye to TBiA
Finishing it off with a sweep gives me better feelings about the place than it deserves. Good riddance.
Yeah to hell with that place, and really to all the hapless taxpayers who built them another one.
Two least favorite memories in the Beane era at that park: (1) Dotel meltdown in 2004 in September in the final game, serving as a metaphor for what was to follow (2) A-rod walk-off grand slam in I believe 2002.
Good call on the second one. Off of Billy Koch.
The next day the A’s scored 3 in the 8th and 8 in the 9th to beat them 12-2.
Double reply/edit fail.
I can still hear in my head Bill King’s stunned and dejected “holy toledo” on the first one.
every time i come back from a river trip up in the state of jefferson i hope that at least one in the alerts bevy that welcome me back to signal is about someone dying.
well, donald didn’t, and yet ric did.
this bullshit has. got. to. stop.
Fangraphs has the A’s at 95.8% to make the playoffs, and 2.8% to win the World Series. It has the Rays at 68.8% to make the playoffs and 3.9% to win the World Series.
What’s up with that?
they had the A’s to win 81 games or so. I think its a vestige of that. They just think the rays are better.
The were 3-5 WAR down on each of Olson Semien and Chapman. light on Laureano and light on the starters. Mark Cahna didn’t even make the depth chart.
I thought the Rays were better at the beginning of the season too. There’s no longer much evidence for that, even if you assume Snell pitches in the playoffs.
Revisit your priors, algorithm.
I just checked the page again, and they have upgraded us to 96.2% and 3%. Boom.
I guess the answer to this is that our easy schedule makes it almost impossible for Cleveland to catch us, while the Rays’ hard schedule could trip them up. But if the Rays get in, the algorithm thinks the Rays are a better enough team to still make them more likely to win it all. That’s a pretty bold take by the algorithm given the likelihood that the WC game will be in Oakland.
20 years of Beane-era history in elimination games must be part of the equation.
Ah yes, I forgot about the SDWITP coefficient.
Strangely, the Rays’ odds advantage doesn’t show up until you get to winning the World Series. Current odds:
Make wild card game: A’s 97.7%, Rays 57.5%
Make division series: A’s 47.9%, Rays 30.9%
Make league championship series: A’s 15.2%, Rays 12.0%
Make World Series: A’s 6.3%, Rays 5.9%
Win World Series: A’s 3.1%, Rays 3.6%
It thinks they are a little stronger than the A’s in each round, but it takes 4 rounds for that to make up for the difference in the odds of even making the WC game.
Implied odds of winning each round if they get there are:
A’s: 49% WC, 32% DS, 41% LCS, 49% WS
Rays: 54%, 39%, 49%, 61%
And division series is toughest because you know they’ll be playing either the Yankees or Astros. LCS is most likely the other one of those, but could also be the Twins.
Wait, shouldn’t the wild card percentages add up to 100%? Or is that a Cleveland factor?
The Rays at 61% to win the World Series if they get there is bonkers.
My general sense from those numbers is that they’re slightly underrating the A’s each round, and wildly overrating the Rays.
I don’t think I would change any of those numbers for the A’s much. In the WC I think they are slight favorites at home against Cle, slight underdogs against the Rays, who should be able to put together nine innings of really good pitching.
The LCS situation is weird. I think the A’s and the Rays are both huge underdogs against Hou, who is very unlikely to lose the top spot, but I think both would be favorites against Min and only slight underdogs against the Yankees.
How well did they do compared to us in Interleague?
>500
A’s 35-27
Rays 32-34
v AL Central
A’s 25-8
Rays 20-13
vNL
A’s 11-9 (Cent)
Rays 13-6 (west)
Runn diff
A’s 152
Rays 109
I wonder what the crowd is like for this Monday afternoon Detroit/Baltimore game.
Might be a 100 people in the outfield. Might.
like, playing defense?
Thanks, and go As.
Naturally. Certainly not fans out there.
this is good internet
Salvador Allende says hi.
that was pinochet.
allende said bye.
Ted Nugent is obviously a horrible guy but Stranglehold is an awesome intro song.
Bad juju
Part of me wishes that when the turf is and looks this horrific to just pull the shit up and make it a fully dirt field until they can leave town and replace it.
This is starting to feel like that annoying Friday night Tigers game.
Hm might be my first drk
You weren’t alone.
So, we will close the books on davis for the year
this was a dr. k