Maybe playing as the visiting team at Dodger Stadium will put the A’s more in their element.
We have an earlier start today at 12:35 so the shadows shouldn’t be in play until the 8th or 9th inning. If the A’s had a lead that might set up well for Hendriks. We know that a Game 4 would also start at 12:35 since all four series would still be going so that would be the case tomorrow as well.
Luzardo for the A’s and Urquidy for Houston. It will be a little cooler today with the game time temperature forecast at right around 80°F.
Has SuSlu or anyone asked Melvin about why Murphy is still so low? Or is there some explanation I am missing? I like to think Im not a baseball moron. I even understand, though I dont agree with, the Larussa hit the P 8th idea. But constantly having 1 of the few guys who seems to be awake this week at the bottom of the order just seems off.
Maybe Fosse should ask since this is obvious anti-catcher bias.
How great would it be to move him up to 5th or 6th??
That’s alien to his experience. Bob’s own career starts by batting order position:
1 – 0
2 – 0
3 – 0
4 – 3 (wtf?)
5 – 20
6 – 126
7 – 181
8 – 178
9 – 25
Scratching my head about the 4’s: In two of those (1) (2) he was hitting ahead of George Brett. The Royals were at the beginning of their long stretch of uncompetitive suck, they were off to a horrendous start and nobody at all was hitting so that looks like a desperation move by the manager (Hal McRae). The other one was in the second game of a doubleheader with the Giants.
I swear I remember Posnanski saying McRae at some point pulled a lineup out of a hat ala Billy Martin. Dont know if this was it, but that would be great if it was.
I don’t see the order as that big a deal. Murphy is a rookie (so less certainty of true talent levels), and a catcher, and with a similar profile (very heavy TTO) to several of our other hitters.
The one that is standing out to me though is Laureano, who after all his clutchiness in the regular season is 2/18 with 7 K’s in the postseason and also hitting at the bottom of the order now. I suspect, as with Canha, we’re going to hear something after the fact about an injury he is playing through.
They said yesterday that Melvin thinks he’s “more comfortable” at 9
Some dickhead at Safeway on Shattuck taunted me about the A’s this morning.
That’s the type of hubris that can lead to big turnarounds…
Also noting that Urquidy has (SSS) reverse splits, which is probably why it’s Pinder and Piscotty again instead of Lamb and Grossman.
Ernie Johnson Jr. looks like he had a picture of George Will on his wall as a kid.
Yesterday TBS dragged out an old photo of Pedro in an Expos uniform rocking a Jheri curl; today he appears to have tried to recreate it.
Also Ding Dong Johnson is not the home run euphemism we needed.
I don’t know, you tried all the other ones yesterday.
Unlike the rest of you, I was smart enough to book a dental appointment at 1. So don’t be jealous while I’m enjoying a few fillings while the rest of you are suffering through whatever this is.
Savvy move. There’s no substitute for playoff experience.
I’m late because I was getting the shingles vaccine. It got the A’s a run, not that leads have been helping.
And as soon as he starts commenting…
LaStella homer to deep center on an 0-2 count. That was…unlikely
Another RISPfail
Oh good, another lead our SP promptly gives back.
Not sure which is worse, the long slide into depression of the games we never lead, or the punch in the face of a lead quickly relinquished.
We’ve kind of been getting both of those in every game this series.
Hard to see solo homers and strikeouts getting us there today.
The Astros really do seem to have turned up their athleticism and effort in the playoffs. I hate it.
Yeah fuck those guys. If they advance I feel pretty sure their pitching wouldn’t hold up in the next round against scary hitters. Not sure they’re scared here though.
That’s new!
White Sox killed him on a couple of bad pitches down the middle.
But the Astros continue to hit the ball hard even on pitches that don’t look bad. The Altuve HR was yet another ball on the outside corner pulled, the Brantley single was also on the outside edge, and the Bregman single was below the zone.
I don’t know what you do about that. (It’s like they know what’s coming…)
I’m not gonna lie, watching them swing in this series, that last sentence of yours crossed my mind quite a few times.
Same here, though the more likely truth is that they have lots more good hitters who have now gotten over their slow starts in this weird season.
Hard to imagine, but yes.
Also, our D is quite helpful. Chapman turns two 95 times out of 100 on that, because he doesn’t just pop a squat and wait for the mid-speed grounder.
What kind of a little league bandbox is this “Dodger Stadium”?
Seriously, these newfangled bandbox stadiums that keep popping up are just KILLING the integrity of the game.
i don’t get the other half of this ref. the half i get is that DS is not new.
has there been a change to the stadium?
A change in climate, apparently. It’s a venerable pitchers park playing like Coors or Fenway.
oh.
A couple of them have clanked off the top of the fence but for the most part pushing the fences back 15 feet wouldn’t hold them in the park. Time to slice the baseballs in half and see what the workers in Haiti or Costa Rica are putting in there I guess.
Or just its first taste of American League baseball.
LA Angels 1962-1965.
Damn it, I thought about that, but then thought they left before this place opened.
Looking it up out of curiosity, the Angels totaled 142 home runs in four full seasons in Dodger Stadium (or “Chavez Ravine” as it was called for Angels home games). By today’s standards it’s remarkable that they played 81 games there in 1963 and hit 24 home runs.
didn’t they also move the bleachers in?
The outfield dimensions at Dodger Stadium are the same as Day One. They did remodel to reduce foul territory by quite a bit.
Vin Scully is watching this series and wondering what is this Dodger Stadium he has left to future generations.
Ok. Now Luzardo needs to settle down and put together a couple clean innings.
There’s one.
Bottom of the order, and he threw a few too many pitches, but I’ll still take it.
Apparently he just needed the reminder from me. His stuff is looking pretty good. Even the balls are right near the edge.
Yeah this next inning is going to tell the story. He looks sharp, but Houston is just killing every mistake AND making enough contact on the nasty pitches to get on.
Agreed. If they can hit this you have to tip your cap. The zone is being called well and the stuff is there.
Best inning yet. Finally getting ahead of hitters.
Ok. Now Luzardo needs to settle down and put together a couple clean innings.
w00t! Might’ve been the best pitched inning any A’s pitcher besides Mike Minor has thrown this series.
The Joe Biden ad I’m getting is lame (“As President I’ll protect America without exception. Every time!”)
Streaming through comcast I keep seeing ads for stopping at train tracks, featuring various angles of a car getting absolutely annihilated.
Good metaphor for the trump presidency.
We in CA don’t really see any of the campaign ads very often, not like you purple staters.
I’m getting a lot of ads featuring Lyft and Uber drivers who really like being contractors.
seriously fuck Lyft and Uber… such bad actors
I’ve seen a couple for Trump, and one for Biden during the NFL on Sunday. Not sure if it’s the one Soaker mentioned, but it was touting his support for some expensive military equipment.
Yes I’ve seen a few for sure, but I suspect Soaker gets them basically every commercial break.
Yes, pretty much every local non-network break.
My ballot went in the mail this morning. If Trump wants to keep wasting his money, fine, but I wish I could tell Biden to drop me.
I get a ton of the Trump digital ads, which seems like really bad targeting.
Where are you seeing them?
he’s spent too much time engaging with the corruption of “Proud Boys” meme. Now Trump is blowing cash on him.
mostly youtube
i don’t have TV so i did the internet thing. turned on private browsing and searched for the naked votes ad.
i didn’t pay for it, so wasn’t surprised it was pixelated on the money shot.
This time every four years when celebrities try to help by getting attention is always special.
only 4?
i woulda sworn the imagine medley was a decade ago.
Is Dusty going to say he’s surprised that one went out?
Not out of Yosemite!
No, they carry to right field and just somehow get out
Moonshot!
I like the ones where the outfielder doesn’t even take a step.
Everybody’s swing is starting to look like Bryson Dechambeau’s.
Holy Oly
Those were some quality breaking pitches but Correa didn’t seem like he even thought about swinging.
That was great, Luzardo shook off to get the pitch he knew he wanted and produced exactly the 4-6-3 result he planned.
Ok, moving from 1 meeting to another. Not turning anything one..dont mind me…
Wouldn’t mind getting the occasional baserunner to supplement the payload of the bombs.
Ok, I guess we’ll win with 6 or 7 solo shots.
Getting runners on just doesn’t work for us.
A Semien!
Ugh
I’d prefer not to go to our bullpen too early here. Luzardo is still looking pretty darn solid, and the pen has been… well… otherwise.
Pitching coach visit wouldn’t hurt, though.
Of fucking course.
FKing hell
FK. Had a bad feeling as soon as he couldn’t put Gurriel away.
Poor kid. Deserved better results with how he was throwing.
Yeah and Diaz was clearly looking to pull a fastball there, he was way out front of an offspeed in the same location the pitch before.
Just gonna use Petit every day now?
All 3 of the HRs he gave up during the regular season, he was pitching on 0 days rest. Last year, 6 of the 11 homers. And Bob does not use him on 0 days rest all that often.
I really don’t like Petit here.
sigh
He’s only had one decent outing this postseason, but Bob keeps bringing him in every day and every critical situation.
Thanks Bob.
Dammit. Luzardo was doing better than this.
It looks like we have only about an hour of this misery left.
Longer if our pitchers can’t get anyone out.
Back at my desk and maybe I will just head back and see if they can give me a root canal.
Or some ether.
I’m not having fun anymore.
I hate this day. This is when it all seems so pointless. 2-4 months of great times, things looking so good,then THUD see you next Feb.
At least I get to start my social media blackout soon.
I’m not nearly as disappointed as I would be if this were happening at the end of a 162-game season. This season didn’t look like it would happen at all, what we have seen has been off-kilter with the rules changes, and the postseason was set up from the start as a tournament where randomness was going to be even more the case than usual. Whatever happened with the A’s in 2020, I have been pointing toward February 2021 since May or June anyway.
I’ve been pretty resigned to losing in the ALCS, I underestimated the astros. Yesterday I was disappointed, today I have only been cautiously optimistic.
Expect the worst, accept the best
Such an A’s thing to inspire hope by finally winning a winner take all game before immediately shitting the bed against the one team I would not be ok with them losing to in the playoffs.
I was just thinking exactly the same thing. First playoff wins at all since 2013, first series win since 2006 (and first for Bob with the A’s), first winner take all win since 1973, and somehow getting clobbered by these assholes feels worse than if we had just lost in the first round.
Uh oh, we’ve reached the agronomy talk part of the playoffs.
(grabs shovel, scoops out those few shovelfuls of dirt I had thrown in the grave)
I’m filing my obit away so it will be able to run on short notice later.
Feeling great! LOVE!!!
So you’re telling me there’s a chance?
this time for sure.
right lucy?
you hit 5 home runs you win the game, yeah?
Seems right.
My cable just went out. Good or bad omen?
Springer is trolling us with pretending to lose balls in the sun. He sees them all the way.
Roller coaster, of love (say what?!)
Two innings from Hendriks, then Soria, then…
Maybe this is the game where they get their shot at Fiers.
Let’s not make Hendricks throw 50 pitches please.
Good start.
Just 10 pitches in the 7th!
Lots of strikes, please, Liam.
A good, quick inning there. This seems destined to end with Jason Hammel giving up the game winning hit though.
Dusty has a history of things happening to his teams in these situations. Just saying.
Ramon!
A’s are in the dreaded 2nd and 3rd with no outs situation
can’t even get a hit.
unbelievable.
I can’t remember Ramon ever bunting, for a base hit or a sacrifice (which Francouer was proposing).
Bunting a guy into “scoring position” would be like trying to lose for the Playoff A’s.
that is how you figure out if an A’s manager is kidnapped
Since when did we know how to get base hits?!?!?!
crap..Do I need to go schedule another meeting? I want to turn the game on but I think I can’t?
A’s 2nd base in the playoffs is like a spinal tap drummer
Mark Kiger just started to anxiously look at his phone.
I wonder how many suggestive or worse photos of Mrs. Kiger are on that thing.
LOL-in my head he was sitting next to a rotary phone.
Perfect synopsis of 2020-La Hella nailed by these dicks.
“Didn’t react that well”? The hell was he supposed to do there?
I think the reference is, even though the shadows aren’t out to home plate, there’s a fair amount of glare in the background with the low sun angle.
Ouch. Looks like we have some Tony Kemp in our future.
I guess he has fallen behind Orf in the pecking order, at least when defense is needed.
Yeah, he was also used as a defensive replacement a couple times previously.
If someone needs to start tomorrow though, I assume it would either be Kemp at 2B, or Pinder at 2B with Lamb at 3B.
pfft, still no hits
Catcher interference giveth…
My God-replay.
I just saw it. That was the worst outcome of many bad outcomes this year. what did they see?
I was hoping one of you could tell me.
They didn’t see anything that would allow them to overturn.
Having our season turn on replay review of catchers interference is just perfect.
If Reddick gets a clutch hit here I give up.
LOL! The Reddick tantrum FTW!
Really like him adding the bat snap to the helmet throw in his repertoire. It’s important to keep growing.
helmet stayed on
LOL-just watched the replay and that was my exact thought. Missing the helmet slam and bounce, very off brand.
I was expressing appreciation for him changing it up. We all like the hits, but some new material is still welcome from a legend.
saw bow wow wow in the 90s. they played i want candy twice.
give the people what they came to see
They’re going to have to win Game 4 without Hendriks and have him ready for Game 5.
Reddick striking out in the 8th inning of a big playoff game with runners on base. Now THAT brings back memories (to 2013 in this case).
We finally have the lead when the shadows came in.
New York is furious that a couple of cowtown teams like Oakland and Houston have banished the Yankees to TNT.
Hendriks out for the ninth! Hercu-Liam indeed.
How many times did Rollie go three in the playoffs?
At least once.
The screw job has not yet taken full effect.
Well the top of the 9th shouldn’t have been started without the lights on. Actually I’m surprised they weren’t on already; television usually asks for that.
CI, lights, check swings, what else can they do?
Laz Diaz does not want to hear he called too much.
Never a doubt.
(QUICKLY DELETES MULTIPLE COMMENTS)
I aint heard no fat lady!
Extremely nice win
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that the solution is to start posting the FKing postmortems in the fifth inning.
Don’t miss your cue tomorrow!
Also, the key appears to be that Laureano aint having none of it.
Yes! We live to see tomorrow.
Gonna need 7 solid from Mr. Montas.
I sort of think you have to put Bassitt down there since it might be a day he would do throwing anyways.
Related-someone needs to hide Petit and tell Melvin he didnt show up tomorrow.
I was thinking Bassitt on short rest for Game 5.
I like our chances with Montas vs. whoever tomorrow.
But part of my obit was that we’ve gotten only 1 decent start in 6 playoff games, and that’s just not gonna get it done.
I guess the only other option would be Fiers so yeah your right unless something crazy happens.
But let’s just have Frankie Magic for 9 innings.
Yay!!!!!!!
The bad news is that now you need to have more dental work done tomorrow. And Friday.
I’ve been to the dentist 7 times since March, so what’s 2 more???
I’m in there at 9 a.m. tomorrow so why don’t you save yours for Friday.
I may actually tell my training team they need to schedule meetings with me the next 2 days.
My god these Australian closers.
so i don’t know what all this doomtrawling is about.
i tuned in for the last 2 of this game (the first 2 of my season) and everything was fiiiiiine.
Great-now Im picturing Ramon reminding everyone it wasnt over when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor.
I was surprised to hear the broadcast crew say that pregame Khris Davis was the most animated rally the troops guy on the A’s. Of course this crew sounds like they never even looked at the A’s roster before first pitch Tuesday, so take with an Aaron Judge-sized salt lick.
Huh. Maybe there is something to this team after all.
Stating the obvious here, but seems like the Astros plans A,B,C, and D are hoping that Greinke can give it a go?
They have been really weird about this whole Grienke thing. I can’t remember a team being this secretive about a player’s condition before.
They’re hoping he can find his throwing arm. They’re pretty sure it went to the hotel with him.
Random free association: Felt like I deserved a shot of whiskey. Poured one into a shotglass with image of a winged mrs ptbnl I got at her bday party some years back. Remembered the lovely Oakland venue it was held in. Learned its proprietor is now a raging defiant Covidiot.
my wedding reception was there.
fucker kept coming out of his office to turn the music down. he never talked to me or anybody nor tried in any way to resolve his discomfort in any human-to-human way.
Dude better watch out the City is considering getting around to maybe sending him another sternly worded letter.
i should consider to think so!
And he died.
The flaming tequila fairy fountain!
We also went back there for another event and discovered saucers of urine under the kitchen counters.
Damn … I’ve forgotten the image resizing commands when width=”” doesn’t work.
style=”width:300px”
But I’m not seeing it embedded, so maybe fb doesn’t allow embedding images on another site or something else about the url is weird.
Thanks. Someone had kindly moved it to a different platform and resized it, but left one too many https in the src.
I don’t use Imgur very often but the resizing function on there does come in handy at times. I did screw this one up on the first attempt.
I did an emergency fix; edit if you want.
This Arozarena kid is a beast, and it is also delightful to say his name. Bonus points for getting shredded on chicken and rice and pushups during his quarantine.
I believe it.
To which I say, a Thursday win is trivial without a Friday win.
I think he means start and go nine.
If he doesn’t have 18 more in him, I’m not interested in these soft modern players.
Obamacare has not been a disaster for me, Mr. Pence, pretty much the opposite.
Kinda funny that the VP debate is traditionally the attack dogs going at it and that one seemed relatively calm. I suppose the goal posts have moved.
The punditocracy would never let a woman, especially a Black woman, get away with going full Bob Dole. And Mike Pence is just a soggy piece of toast by nature.
But Pence REALLY wanted to believe the tax increase claim. Maybe he wasn’t told it’s a lie.
Relevant
Chronicle headline (over a story with three bylines):
wholesome content
click to unroll
Utz, proud sponsors of Dock Ellis’s no-no.
I was super impressed by Kelly, good pitches just off the plate to Tatis and Machado again and again. They would either have to hit Kelly’s pitch or take the walk, nothing easy,
Well, Dusty? We’re waiting!
I have to host an all-hands Zoom meeting this afternoon at 3:45, so hoping for a brisk game today.
If not it will be a big test of my poker face to watch A’s and not react
The preening and pissing match between between the Dodgers and Padres may be the thing that finally turns me into Unwritten Rules Old Guy.
I dont know if it is actually true, but I feel like he starting the return of Krush. So I am ok with this.
I’m fine with it. Grienke, great as he is, doesn’t scare me at this point against this lineup, especially with whatever has kept him from pitching so far.
So he’ll probably pitch a shutout.
gives up two in 3 innings, garcia comes in throws 4 shut out innings, paredes and pressley finish it out
So a 2-0 victory?
Sandy: hey don, I pitched a no hitter
Don: Congratulations! who won?
I am not 100% convinced they arent sandbagging about Grienke for some reason. Like they really thought they could sweep without using him to give him a week off.
No, Im not paranoid, why are YOU asking me that??
I would like a stress-free 6-1 victory today.
I guess I would be ok with that.
I was going to make a joke about a 17-1 instead, but I actually would be really worried about that. It would be very A’s to destroy them to day and forget to show up tomorrow.
Can you imagine all the heads exploding in the 7th inning of a 17-1 game when bob goes Diekman-soria-hendriks?
Don’t know if I can read too much into this but its the start of an interesting bit of research
There was similar analysis done back when the contact oriented ’14-’15 Royals were a thing. I think the tl;dr is that it’s not so much that contact hitters perform better in the playoffs, but that they experience less of a performance loss relative to their baseline against power pitchers (who perform well against everyone usually) than power hitters. And since the playoffs generally feature more power pitchers, that’s why you see a bit of an advantage.
of course. I am trying to put that era out of my mind
And just against better pitchers in general. Wait for a mistake that you can hit hard is a great approach against bad pitchers, but against the best ones the pitches you can drive are fewer and farther between. Ken Arneson has been harping on this recently, and I’ve come around to this point of view also over the years. It’s not clear how to improve things. Hitters who can hit for power AND make a lot of contact don’t exactly grow on trees and are out of our price range as free agents. Trying to copy the Royals (brief) success seems like the recipe for a lot of 4th-place finishes.
Big Braves fan this morning as they go for the sweep.