Kotsay might be thinking of a different home fifth. In his playing days he was known as a wine guy; I gotta imagine it’s straight hard liquor now.
It was inevitable that we’d be talking about losing this year. Riding an eight game losing streak, returning home for two series against very strong teams, then heading back out on the road…I think its time to guess just how long the longest Oakland As losing streak of 2023 will be. And is this even it, or is the nadir yet to come?
• In the modern era (sorry, Spiders fans) the MLB record is 23 straight L’s by the 1961 Phillies.
• “Honorable” mention to the second place 1988 Orioles, who *only* lost 21 straight, but did it to open the season, very nearly going 0-fer-April.
• The Athletics franchise appears twice in MLB’s top ten list, in 1916 and 1943. Connie Mack is a fine role model / aspirational goal for Kotsay.
• If you want to include the olden days, the all-time record is 26 losses, by the 1889 Louisville Colonels. That team has numerous entries in wikipedia’s list, so I dub them the Losingest. They once lost five games in two days, a mark that even today’s Athletics are unlikely to challenge.
A hit!
[six innings later] Another hit!
and seth brown!
If only there were a position where his bad defense wouldnt be a factor
With a day off for Ken Johnny D. moves back into the TV chair.
Pro tip: get altuve out more
Can seth brown be -10 runs defensively in 9 left field innings?
The way this team allows runs, absolutely yes
This is one of the uglier A’s innings you’ll see, and that’s really saying something.
oh my. from the first pitch on this has been a comedic defensive game
Bets on whether Hogan Harris can improve his ERA?
Assuming so, which will see the biggest improvement – his ERA or his WHIP?
WHIP dropped by a factor of 12, ERA by almost 16.
He damn well better or he’ll get sent to the Klink.
Pruitt made an early bid to challenge in the race toward an infinite ERA.
Dropped it from 162.00 to 10.13 and got himself a much happier MLB memory, good for you kid.
It’s Henry Kissinger’s 100th birthday, proving irrefutably that there’s no such thing as karmic justice, and also probably that he’s an alien.
In a choose-your-superpower discussion yesterday I settled on the ability to invoke instant karma, good or bad.
Has there been a bigger mid season upgrade than kuiper to doskow/cotroneo?
It’s like the Milton Bradley acquisition all over again.
Relegation day is the best day in sports
From Champions League to Championship in 7 seasons.
My home team’s — VfB Stuttgart — regular season is over and they still don’t know if they are relegated or not. In Germany, the third worst team from 1st Bundesliga and the third best from the 2nd play it out in a home and home series. This year it’s Stuttgart and HSV, both multiple ex-champions
Walking the bases loaded on a pitch clock violation to get to Alverez was a genius move.
I call him home run medina.
Bummer about the seeing eye single and the 50 foot topper single before it
You don’t need to tell me that this stanek guy went to university of arkansas johnny, his hair tells me that
17th double-digit runs against gets them to -199 and on a pace for -586, two-thirds as bad again as the modern record.
Put another way, at this rate they’ll beat the record with 65 games to spare.
The comeback will be epic.
Huh, Chad Pinder retired. He could presumably play for this team but why bother.
Atlanta’s turn to pad their run differential … the Rays are +26 just from their games against the AAs and the Rangers +32.
would the A’s run differential be better if they faced the A’s?
The resistable force meets the movable object.
If a legislative committee meeting sounds more exciting than watching the 2023 A’s get hammered by Matt Olson, Sean Murphy and the rest of the Atlanta Braves, here’s your hearing on SB 509 starting at 4 p.m. There’s no Memorial Day Monday holiday for a legislature that’s up against deadline.
I’ll be rooting for the crushing miserable defeat and sadness of Boston Celtics fans.
Shaping up nicely
This is more sadness than I dared hope for
I’m so glad I never outgrew enjoying this feeling.
One of the best things about sports, since your favorite team usually doesn’t win it all.
Nuggets are going to run away with this, though.
Projected Opening Day has already been pushed back to 2028.
Drop the bill on Friday, hold the hearing on Memorial Day. They must be very proud of it.
The Assembly Speaker wants to know how badly the projections of attendance and interest by locals (they are saying 70% local fans and 30% out-of-town average per game, with near sellouts of every game) would be affected if the team sucks.
Most of the questions are about detailed tax issues.
LOL “(the aging existing Tropicana) is the A’s of the Strip”. (Question was about opportunity cost of doing a ballpark on the site vs. some other development that would undoubtedly come along on that prime real estate if the ballpark project weren’t done.)
As expected, my overall sense of it is there’s a healthy amount of skepticism among the committee members who were asking the questions, but any Vegas Democrat who votes against it would get a lot of blowback from the unions down there, and they have a lot of say in the political process.
Here’s the Independent’s summary of the hearing.
I guess someone has decided that the chances of this bill going through are lower the more it is publicly associated with current A’s ownership.
And we thought our hostility wasn’t doing anything.
That doesn’t sound like it matches with a 2028 opening.
There were a number of questions about that community benefits agreement aspects of the bill in Section 23, and also the homelessness fund in Section 20. The bill’s language is vague and so were the answers from the A’s consultant: “It’s stuff where we’ll work out the details later.”
Ms. Monroe-Moreno was the most openly hostile person on the committee, with others seeming dubious. I don’t think there was any “hell yes” in there.
It’s the union push that will get this thing through if it does, along with some GOP with no particular reason to support it going along with their Governor (his chief of staff spoke in favor and his Office of Economic Development is also behind it).
Blackburn and Bride back, and the Jesus Aguillar experience has mercifully ended.
Murphy drives in Olson with the game-winning run to open the first inning.
Ramon has had some pretty good at bats when I assumed he would just swing to destroy baseballs
The arc of Olson’s swing pefectly timing a ball into obliion is one of the prettiest sights in sport.
Never in doubt
Unstreaked!
The first RSN domino falls.
What happens with the Padres seems likely to be a template for several other teams later this season and for the A’s possibly as soon as 2024, whether they are in Oakland or Vegas.
Is MLB going to be producing the Padres telecasts itself?
Yes, that’s their plan for all teams where the RSN contracts are terminated.
So here’s the template. The way it’s going to work for the Padres is, they will put the games on dedicated channels on the major cable companies plus DirecTV in their market. If you want to watch legally via MLB.tv in-market you have to buy a separate single-team subscription for Padres games, even you have a full subscription for the out-of-market games.
So if you lived in the Padres market and wanted an all-30 package without blackouts, and were paying full price for everything from the start of the season, it would be $139.99 for all the out-of-market games plus $119.99 for the Padres games = $259.98. With 1/3 of the season past they are currently offering the Padres package for $74.99 for the rest of 2023, a small discount vs. the alternate $19.99/month charge for that.
I wouldn’t mind a quick hit tonight. It looked like the A’s poked the bear last night, so tonight might be a strong candidate for an early *click*.
Hmmm, quick hit not forthcoming.
Have a good night thanks to Ramon!
The AAs cleanup hitter has the same OPS as the Oakland area code.
Not any more. Quick, ship him to New Brunswick.
We used to think Kendallburg was a sad little town but it looks a little nicer with each passing year.
While in the car briefly just now I learned from Ken that JP Sears is considered the best golfer in the A’s clubhouse.
Ruiz is living to the left of Riley.
the bunting a’s
Way to go Austin!
Kotsay just made the “Arrow Exterminators Call to the Bullpen” on Braves radio, which seems like it would be more appropriate as an A’s sponsorship.
Snitker was granted time before Ruiz got to first. Is that a pace of play rule?
Ruiz just needs a TOOTBLAN to complete the hat-trick
OK let’s see that Jonah Bride magic.
High absurdity value walk-off!
They won’t win many season series. That’s a surprising one.
They get to go for the sweep tomorrow!
just tuned in. SOrry guys. was going well before hand
…
He wants to run a washington generals so that the tourists can go to the casinos happy
This strategy is working great for Mark Davis
I’ve been thinking, we have silver and black Commitment to Excellence license plates (which I see a ton of), plus Golden Knights (quite a few), UNLV and UNR (not many) plates. I’m going to have to decide if I want a green and gold A’s plate. If the slogan is “Rooted in Vegas”, probably not.
this series has exposed the A’s positioning. They are giving up a lot of hits that the braves are not.
It’s a naked eye observation, of course so I could be all wrong, but it continues a patter I have believed in the past few years. I would guess they don’t have many people working on that in their analytics department.
Amen, John Shea
JMHO on that last part:
That’s pretty much what being a hardcore sports fan is. Always a one-sided commitment. The team will never love you back as much (and the owners not at all). A fan makes their peace with that, or moves on.
Steve Garvey considering GOP run for Feinstein seat in 2024. Presumably to capitalize on the Republicans newfound belief that serial adultery and out-of-wedlock procreation are just fine.
Steve Garvey’s face is exactly what I picture when I hear the words “California Republican”
He’s 74 now. You’d think at least one of these parties would move away from gerontocracy, but so far no.
Also, Steve Garvey is 74 now, holy crap I’m old.
Remember when Cindy Garvey left him for Marvin Hamlisch?
Tough for him to win that CA Senate seat, but it puts his name in the hat for a Cabinet post in the Trump-Tuberville administration. “He won four Gold Gloves so I think he will make an outstanding Secretary of Defense.”