Montas leads the A’s against the *. Really need him to get past 5 today. LaStella is in the lineup.
178 thoughts on “DS Game 4: No clever title; just FKing win”
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Montas leads the A’s against the *. Really need him to get past 5 today. LaStella is in the lineup.
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I don’t care if it’s cliche, La Stella is a fucking gamer.
Tough not to call it gritty. (I am in the “don’t sign camp though, I think he has given away a couple of DPs with a weak arm, and some outs with poor range. I am fine with Pinder/kemp/machin platoonish with simmons/semien/ someone? korean guy? lindor? at short)
Depends on cost, and on Chapman’s recovery IMO
Super excited. Let’s do this thing!
Ray’s keys to the game “winning” Good start, then he fosse’s it up
Greinke’s first few fastballs 87-88.
And that’s almost all he’s thrown so far. He’s basically late-model Bartolo Colon.
He shook off to the fastball a few times also. Will be interesting to see what else he has.
Meanwhile Frankie is dialing it up to 100.
And on the other side, a couple of 100s for Frankie.
Nice start for Frankie.
I mostly like Orsillo but the A’s pitcher is not “Frankie Moan Toes”. Francoeur has it right and should set him straight between innings.
Steiner and monday said wendle KEN
They’ve seemed pretty good in general. Big improvement over Jessica Mendoza phoning it in.
I think there’s also something about ESPN’s production style that just grates in a way TBS’s doesn’t. I can’t put my finger on it.
TBS knows how to do minimal production because of years with the Braves. ESPN puts all the NFL-esque text everywhere. And the unforgivable during-play interviews.
Also they talk about the game they are calling, instead of the Yankees game they wish they were calling.
Someone is definitely going to lose a fly ball in the sun this series. Springer the number 1 candidate.
he already lost one, it didn’t matter
If we can force them to quickly sign and play Josh Hamilton I would be delighted.
Are the Angels still picking up his salary?
RAMON!
That’ll do. Especially since we get a run on a pasta-dive single.
Thank you ramon
Ramon smash!
Nice of Grienke to tell Ramon that hanger was coming.
Well, there was a mistake that we could drive.
8th A to homer in the post-season (every spot except Grossman/Piscotty).
And of course you’d need both guys to go yard to make it 10 and bat around.
hmm, let’s get to that argument
Was that an Earthquake?
No, it’s Ramon!
Has anyone asked Grienke to explain why he has been signaling the catcher what he is going to throw? Or asked Dusty why he lets him?
Trying to make it fair for both teams.
It’s a long-play towards a Rookie of the Year inning
Would be fun to see what would happen if a pitcher told the hitters what was coming every pitch, but lied a quarter of the time.
I feel like analytics departments would find a pattern in when he lied over time unless he carried a random number generator with him or something.
Here it comes. Old #1, the Terminator.
50th birthday today for Olmedo Saenz = yikes
Thank you frankie
Have a meeting in 15 min, if the A’s would kindly score more runs to put my mind at ease before then, that would be lovely.
Is Melvin doing his interviews between innings, while Dusty does his live during the action?
Grienke is not fooling anyone.
Nice pitch to Pinder.
If you come for the Sluss, best be right
Technically he’s coming for the reporter she’s citing.
Isn’t it adding and subtracting? I think Greinke threw a slider, not a curveball, after he held up two fingers, which suggests Maldonado called for a fastball. Stew is nodding and approving.
That’s what a bunch of other people on twitter were saying. Not sure why Slusser was being so insistent.
After all the quick hooks we’ve seen, it’s hard to believe Greinke is still out there. He just doesn’t seem to have much.
(Damn, lucky DP there)
he has to go three, remember?
Yeah. Hard to call it a TOOTBLAN. Just tough luck on an aggressive secondary lead.
At risk of more cliches, that’s why little league coach taught you to freeze until you see the line drive clear the infield.
Ugh, that can’t fucking happen. Where was Canha?
Argh. Yell louder Canha.
Yeah, I know Oly is gold glover and all but Canha had to call him off of that one.
Routine effort pop out to RF, and Canha’s just jogging slowly and watching Oly. Very bad work.
Or, you know, at all.
ack
this at bat is killing me
I noticed last night that Pence is also “the reality is…” guy.
He’s not entitled to his own facts either.
Ironic, given his team’s tenuous relationship with reality.
A Pence administration would be the longest Vince Inning of our lives.
My #1 fear is that Trump gives up, Pence subs in, and the entire media decides he’s the compromise candidate.
Way too late for that now. Maybe if the Senate had removed Trump in January and Pence contained COVID and didn’t do a Ford Pardons Nixon.
If it’s too late, its only because of early voting.
I l’d out l
frankie has two bases to strike someone out
Who needs ’em. Man it’s nice to get a couple good innings out of a SP.
A couple.
That was a hella funky pitch to K Maldonado. Maybe a cutter? Ran in like a screwball.
Right? Crazy movement. His ball is super lively today.
Last two pitches to Springer were also pretty.
Frankie Magic!
Frankie!
That’s how you overcome an error, JB.
Fosse is reading FK between innings and just stole this.
Good at bat khris. Get em next time
Dammit Josh.
Meh, get em next inning
Olson’s ball was 10 rows deep yesterday. Definitely not flying out the way it has been. That’s good, probably.
It’s like the shadows. Good for the team that’s ahead.
Which is no longer us.
Yeah. Off the bat it didn’t look even remotely robbable
Decent cool down today. I havent had to turn on the fan yet.
Catching the ball over a 3 foot wall. Nice job, Josh.
Would have given anything for it to slip out of his glove while his arm was hanging over the wall.
he took that like he knew what was coming
To not even hesitate on that nasty 2-2 slider sure takes some great discipline.
Good thing he didn’t walk brantly
Drat. Missed location finally bit him
How many bloops just over LaStella’s glove in this series?
I am more convinced a full year of lastella is money spent better other places
Man. When the Astros get rolling, they GET ROLLING.
Maybe their cunning plan to avoid detection is only stealing signs in certain innings.
How pathetic has our starting pitching been.
Fiddlesticks.
two bombs and 3 flares and a walk
Losing to a dickhead like Correa really irks.
right where we want them
bad inning
I guess I didnt think 3 would do it anyways.
Montas sure seems like he should become a great 2 or so inning relief pitcher. He just turns into a pumpkin so damn quick.
4 won’t do it either.
I will not be satisfied before 11
Ramon not letting us die.
Yep. He’s having an OK day.
I feel bad for the radio crew. I know they need to make the content relatable but there are almost no memories I want to relive of playoff series.
Almost.
Well, fine then.
They love J.B. Me not so much. Hopefully the 2:30 meeting works again.
Melvin not making the pitching changes, weird.
That would usually only happen if Bob were hurt, like took the stairs instead of the elevator at the hotel and pulled a hammy.
I have never understood why that is, either; it seems like a pointless “unwritten rule”. The pitching coach spends all his time with the pitchers and catchers and runs the pregame meeting. Unless there’s some specific strategy thing the manager wants to discuss with the infielders at the same time he’s making the pitching change, it makes sense to me for the pitching coach to be the one who reinforces some point with the relief pitcher.
It has to be based in the idea that pulling a pitcher mid-inning was a bit of an insult back in the old days. Therefore the manager should be the one delivering the insult.
Maybe they just want to get a little more work out of Emerson before they fire him.
FK FK FK FK FK
Oh dear. She’s leakin’ an awful lot of oil.
I like how Pinder was thinking triple play.
Agree. Man I miss Chapman.
So how many more at bats does Laureano get?
My negative mind. “We’re down 7-4 in the 6th. There is no way we could comeback from that. It has never happened before…”
Where do we go to get a Michael Brantley?
Actually in a month or 2 I think you just call his agent.
Just stop by old man Boras’s place, he’s got a bunch, but harvest the money tree first.
Soria obviously doesn’t have it today but what else are we gonna do?
Throw Fiers to the wolves.
get em tomorrow
They’re even out of teAses, aren’t they.
They were not.
That wasn’t a strike, either
Cy Snead is available today, right?
vince. i hated it, but it was a good call
Argh. Hard to interpret that Semien drive dying on the warning track as anything but the end.
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They can go ahead and switch to the Yankees at the top of the hour.
The clock is ticking down to my stupid work meeting. If the A’s manage to come back I will surely get fired for my inability to maintain a straight face on Zoom.
Just kidding, I’m an unfireable public employee.
This sucks.
I went to my meeting, bit off the head of someone who only sort of deserved it, and decided that’s enough listening for this year. I’ve already started rosterbating. I hope I can laugh at myself in the next half hour or so but I really do need to get some work done.
“A’s down by 7 have a start”
Good work ken
Pro’s pro
Starting to wonder if this is fugly enough for Beane to do something drastic this offseason.
just need a2nd base person
and a short stop
and a closer
and a set up guy
and a starter
The most frustrating thing is that the quality of the arms in the starting rotation did not seem to be reflected in the execution.
With a new ballpark now all the way out to 2024 at best or even 2025 I wouldn’t rule much out.
Yeah, the stuff has seemed to be there for Luzardo, Montas, and even Manaea most of the time but either the game calling, the conditioning, or just the mental side of pitching has failed them. It’s troubling.
a season for murphy and heim should provide data to straighten that out, yeah?
This was as optimistic as I had been about the starting rotation in a long time.
Puk got hurt. That happens (not just to Oakland). It would have been surprising if someone in the rotation didn’t go down.
Bassitt was mostly great. Manaea and Fiers gave us some good starts and some bad ones, probably what we should expect from them.
But Montas and Luzardo, the ones I was most excited about, as great as they looked at times, just didn’t get the results.
Maybe it’s the coaching. Maybe it’s the game calling, having such young starters paired with a trio of rookie catchers. Maybe expectations were just too high, and they’ll still put it together in another year. It’s tough to evaluate those things from the outside. But yeah, just a massive disappointment from the starting pitching, and even more so in the playoffs.
I agree with the assessment. Let’s also not forget what a strange year this has been, and I’m guessing the young guys were more affected by the isolation and focus they had to go through. If next year is a “normal” season, and we still have the same assessment of Montas & Luzardo, then it would be time to worry.
Montas was an emerging ace in June 2019. That has been the biggest setback. Luzardo’s minor league experience was so stop-and-start with the injuries, the struggles in his first year in the MLB rotation didn’t surprise me. He’s probably the only “untouchable” on the major league roster this winter.
Honestly, our BP faceplant was more troubling to me in the playoffs (though not for next year). That was our defining strenghth, and everyone but Hendricks (and even him once) kept getting rocked.
The3 last time he blew things up he really seemed like he wanted to say this was the last time he is reloading. I dont know if he would walk away but it is starting to feel like the definition of insanity.
It’s just so exhausting to think about. Even with Chapman and Olson at arb 1, most other teams with our situation would be looking for the final piece to push them over the top (like the * in 2017 with Verlander).
Instead we’re wondering if Semien is even going to get a qualifying offer, who’s going to replace Liam (someone who the Yankees/Dodgers and some other teams would also likely give a QO to). Wondering if they can even afford a LaStella. Wondering if even at arb 1, Chapman/Olson is getting too rich for the billionaire owner to want to hold on to.
Just so tired of this. I get it, we’re poor schmucks who should be eternally grateful that we even get to be the “just good enough” team the amount of times we have been. But it’s becoming clearer and clearer that this is all we’ll be under this type of ownership who will never be willing to take that last step to get into the upper echelon of teams that have combined both money and top tier baseball ops.
In fairness to them, they tried going for it with Lester too, and that failed.
The Lester trade CUT payroll – Lester + Cespedes combined were making a bit more than Cespedes for 2014, but the Red Sox included some cash in the deal so that part was about a wash, and then we lost Cespedes (and his $10M salary) for the next year. We also lost the rare hitter whose approach had worked in the playoffs.
was that true plus Smardaskdjfa;lskdjf?
I thought we took on a bunch (and shipped prospects for what we hoped would be go-for-it vets).
Yup. The point is that we had to kneecap ourselves to take that one shot. And it’s talent, not money, that gets sacrificed for it, whether it’s a MLB piece for a MLB piece like Lester-Cespedes or prospects for MLB piece (Samardzija), which of course set in motion the post 2014 BS transactions that tried to replenish said lost talent.
Unless he can force the owner to sell the fucking team, I’m not sure anything really matters.
Also, admittedly not as plugged in as I may have once been, but are there even prospects who could be moved if they wanted to “go for it”? Am I right in stating that each of the top picks during the last “rebuild” that amounted to Beck, Kyler, and Puk all seem to be pretty big misses (ranging from “understandable” in the case of Puk to totally fucking un-understandable in the case of Murray)?
Robert Puason would spark interest, but he is very young — no minor league experience yet to speak of. Ditto this year’s first rounder, the catcher Tyler Soderstrom. The shortstops Nick Allen and Logan Davidson would be tradeable pieces, but probably not as the main piece of a package for someone serious. That’s pretty much it.
If you told me the A’s scored 20 runs in 4 games, I would assume at least there would be a game 5
And if I told you how bad the starting pitching would be over 7 playoff games, you would be surprised they got to play that many.
Stupid 2020 playoff format. Stupid Covid.
Bye Marcus, we really loved having you around.
The hell is Pressley doing in this game, anyway?
Least plausible teAse yet.
And Laz Diaz puts it out of its misery.
https://deadline.com/2020/10/vice-president-mike-pence-tests-positive-has-coronavirus-after-donald-trump-1234594074/
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RTccWAeCT4gJ:https://deadline.com/2020/10/vice-president-mike-pence-tests-positive-has-coronavirus-after-donald-trump-1234594074/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Really? Holy shit.
“prep.”
notes written before they’re true, to publish quickly when they happen.
like famous people obits.
What I always think of.
lol.
I needed this. Pls post similar content starting tomorrow through Mid Feb. kthx
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Goodnight, sweet princes.
Happy off-season Fkers. It was nice to see some of you who reappeared during these playoffs – stick around, we’re fun when there’s no baseball too!
Lew Wolff, fresh off helping Arte Moreno get a sweetheart deal on the Big A site, has some things to say about Oakland.
Here’s the thing. No one’s going to hang out around the Coliseum site regardless of what you put there. There’s no foot traffic. No one is just passing through and says, yeah I’ll stop by. There’s no offices close enough to say yeah I’ll catch the away game at the A’s bar at the ballpark village after work. I find the idea that the area could ever be a destination untenable. It’s Howard Terminal or they’re moving and it’s 50/50 which happens.
Seems to me anything more than minimal commercial development would never work there, but building a bunch of housing seems like it could be profitable, whether a stadium is there or not.
Which is why the A’s bought half the site and are negotiating for the rest. Either stadium plan B, or in the end housing, the land itself is a pretty safe asset to sit on while you decide.