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Open Game Thread - Game 116: A's @ Tigers (cont.)

Dan Meyer is under the mistaken impression that he's pitching to Josh Hamilton at Yankee Stadium. Tigers with solo HRs in 3 consecutive innings. A's trail 3-2 after 4.

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Comments

Let's Go Oakland!
Clap, Clap

Clap, Clap, Clap!

Haha!

I was waiting for you to say “Roomy”

I ALMOST did...

I swear, but then…I thought it might have gotten old…

Leo-isms

never get old.

down one....not bad. do-able.
Very.

Where you been?

Was in Denver this past work-week checking out places to live.
oh I know that,

I meant tonight.

That's not acceptable.

You might have to edit your user name and avatar.

He'd be DeA
co_A
Is that like...

co dependent? I’d be alright with that….

Canadian Ostrich Association?
will cross that bridge...later. least of my worrries. maybe no. 3
Contreras ruptured his achilles tendon

That’s painful even thinking about it

trouble for the White Sox down the stretch
Rupturing is rarely good
happened to Vinnie Testeverde

about five years ago or so. I saw it—looked EXTREMELY painful.

That almost sounds to painful

to wish on Angels players.

John Lackey.

Ruptured face.

Key word here....

is “almost”. I’d love to see K-Rod grab his elbow in mid pitch, fall writhing to the ground, undergo seizures, and then have a helicopter land in centerfield to take him away.

LOL

How about Frankie?

He would be a good candidate for something like that especially the way he falls off the mound.

C'mon Staples
A couple runs this inning would be nice
and shutting out the Tigers in the bottom of the inning
Time for another

Jack jack.

It's catching on
Its a good one.

Too bad it didn’t work this time.

Or last time.

A Jack single just doesn’t get it done.

Detroit announcers are discussing the variety of necklaces on A's players

Zook’s puka shells vs. Staples’ Phiten

Come on Jack.
I really hate it when

home plate umpires make the call on check swings. Unless its completely obvious they should defer unto the corner umps.

I was eating some chocolate and Korach said

Hannahan is 0 for his last 24 and I nearly threw it up

Was it with bacon?
yum.
I can keep eating it now

He’s not due up again for awhile

Yay, Ryan!

And on that good note, I am going to go out for dinner. I’m starving.

Nice hit by Sweeney

That stroke is getting shorter and shorter… [waits…]

Please, Mark.
Sweeney

Atta boy.

Ellis, bring em in. PLEASE.

Too bad

Ellis is hitting second. It was a nice rally while it lasted.

cmooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnn

ASS CRACK!
Where?
Walking toward the dugout, head hanging.
There was a rainbow earlier, too

which I thought might be a good sign.

I got excited for a second there
I'm starting to get a little tired

of Mark Ellis.

Want to sign my petition?
same

Not sure if I’d like to see him back next year.

I think the A's might be as well

unless he signs for less money

He really got ahold of that one
That was anticlimactic
The sooner they can get Armando Gallarraga out of the game

the more likely the A’s are to score runs.

They've been hitting him well.

It’s just that we have so many black holes in the lineup that there’s no way to continue the rallies.

7 hits, 2 XBH - both scored

Too many singles and station to station baseball

It's better than the tons of K's

we had been racking up recently

Cust certainly has been tested

playing tonight.

well, at least it stayed in the yard...
Same thought.

I was actually thinking Cust was going to make another spectacular (for him) catch.

I don't trust this Polanco character

His eyes are too close together

He needs a hair cut.
He has a misshaped head.
Detroit's announcers...

...are so damn boring.

I can live with anyone but Physioc
Huddler.

He’s the worst.

They're not "bad", just... boring.

I’ll take this as an opportunity to say how much I detest the White Sox guys.

Eddings

is going to tie a rope to Suzuki so he can drag him back behind the plate.

Bungee cords

or one of those leashes that retracts the line.

The sixth inning has been good to us. I'm optimistic we'll do well.
Frank has a habit

Of going yard twice in a game when he’s starting to heat up.

Let's Go A's

Let’s have another, Frank

(well, we’ll take the single)

Only four K's

for the A’s? Swinging at that…...who knew?

Damn

So close!

Not to worry....

Bobby’s up.

Haha!

Go Frank!

God Bobby

He looks so hopeless up there.

poor frank… so much running

'what in the world,

makes Frank think that Bobby will get a base hit?

He's driven a lot of big runs over the years?
Atta baby, Hurt!

Let yer speed take over

Frank's in scoring position

if BoCro hits a triple, that is

Way to work it

Bobby.

C'mon Kurt

Can we buy a double to the wall please?

PLEASE Kurt

Any contact with the ball that does not make an out will do.

No

Not with who’s coming up after him. We need an RBI here.

What did the Rangers get for Galarraga?

He seems like someone they could use.

Some OF; not one of their starting OF though. Forgot the name.
Michael Hernandez

Not sure what happened to him.

Looks like he's hitting .160 in the FSL
Yeah, I see

Texas released him shortly after the trade. Mets signed him to a minor-league contract and now he’s a 25-year-old prospect in single A.

That’s quite a fizzle for Armando. What is it with Texas and giving away pitchers?

cmon kurt

show us some hawaii style

i can smell grand slam in the air

is that what that smell is?
I love the smell of salami in the morning.....tastes like..victory
Ugh! *smells like* of course
Sad.

Leyland is going to take a K away from Gallaragas.

walk in the tying run time?
Barton is up.

another bobby in the game

He's a tough matchup for Barton. But he'll have to deal with these situations as he grows.
aaand....scene!
There is an A...

in Barton. Daric too for that matter. Either way….

it wouldnt be the real A's

without this situation

Dale's gone already? Wtf, Staples!

I should really pay more attention

He works fast.
I was still sitting here all hopeful...
Meyer didn't do all that badly....
Seconded.
Especially given the opposition
I'm tired of fucking around with Daric Barton

early career praise be damned…

Some slump-buster you are.
Speaking of fast.
Don't pull Casilla out

he hasn’t loaded the bases yet.

Interesting..

KK saying Geren was very animated with Casilla…

Kuiper and Fosse said much the same thing
And so he should be
Casilla

can’t find the strike zone to save his life.

Managed to strike out Sheffield despite that though.
Now he's looking better.
Sheffield = Asshat
That's rude...

to asshat’s everywhere.

I resemble that remark
Sorry about that

Sheffield << asshat

were those last three pitches all right down the middle?

That’s what it looked like on PitchFX…

Sort of....the last couple were sliders, but over the plate...a bit toward the outside part
One more

please!

Casilla is throwing hard...

wish he had better control.

When he dials it down...

he gets the ball over the plate. I hate it when pitchers don’t pitch to their strengths.

Casilla was much better after Geren ripped him a new one

Perhaps that’s something that should happen more often.

Yay Santiago!

Whew.

That was outside
Looked good to me
I'm baaack

and there were no Tiger home runs while I was gone. Phew.

How was dinner?

I’m getting ready to go.

I finally made some!

Seared ahi tuna with soy-ginger-lime sauce over a bed of lettuce topped with toasted sesame seeds. Yum!

Impressive!!!
That sounds mighty good. I'm hungry and I've had dinner
Quite good.

Now I just need some dessert.

when this guy throws an offspeed pitch ...

... is it a Seay change?

How long have you been saving that?
hard to Seay, really
Monkey seay, monkey do...
FU Ellis.
It's his goodbye tour methinks.
He'd be a good Cardinal
But I think we should re-sign him for up to three years

assuming my plan of moving Chavez to 2B is ridiculous

Embree growing a Playoff beard.
A beard until he pitches well

so expect some Rip Van Winkle action

Embree in.

Game over.

Yep, the pen must be knackered cos this is a close game.
Casilla throwing 24 pitches eliminated him from this inning
"knackered"

This is one of those words that means something in England….yes?

It's unusual for Oldham to use words like that in here
Yes.

Link

Do you deliberately Americanize your language when posting here?
Sub consciously perhaps. I spend a lot of time on American message

boards.

along with "knickers", "knocked up", and "knapkin"
So, like the A's...

British folks are responsible for the useless K?

Well, OK, maybe I added one extra.
THINGS MY FATHER BEAT M--

No, never mind.

I'd rather see Street than Embree right now.

and that’s a scary thought.

Yes, he doesn't seem like a good matchup for the Tigers
Sweet Jesus.

Get out of the way, Staplehead!

An ERA under 4 and a 5 and 10 record. Ouch, tough break Greg.
He's an A.

No doubt about it.

And so is Embree.
Nice BP fastball, Embree
Yeah, I'd say Embree's done
Cabrera lumbers around the bases.

I hate you and your beard, Embree.

hou hou hou

merry xmas you guys

[grabs ladder]
{grabs black cat}
< grabs broken mirror >
[grabs Ryan Sweeney's ass]
< disables safesearch >
Part of the grieving process?
I'm looking for the bright spots.
Unfortunately with no women on the A's I have no such option
Anger...denial...ass grabbing...bargaining...
No surprise there
how come Geren can't yell at Embree once in a while?
Embree's beyond yelling. He'd have to shoot him.
Because Alan is older than Bob,

and Bob respects his elders?

FU Embree

Blowouts only PLEASE, Geren.

It's not about the results anymore

Just seeing the good old game of baseball and rookies making the journey to the majors.

Embree is one big rookie.

Embree's suckiness continues to amaze me
Not me. I expect it.
Quick stats: ERA up to 5.40, WHIP up to 1.50
Even I don't get whipped THAT often.
< turns safesearch back on >
Gee

I Havent heard from Mr Beane in a while?

I'm pretty sure BB doesn't have an AN account
I thought it was "GreenNGoldGirl"
No, madmongoose
So the Buck thing is just a cover?
No, Billy REALLY loves Travis.
You're saying he likes to save a buck?
He has Comcast?
Anyone

Can play for Oakland right now.

Tell that to Murphy.
Unless your name is Gregorio Petit
Or "A healthy Rich Harden"
"A skinny Joe Blanton?"
Does that exist?
I missed the first 6 innings - someone who's watching

how did Dan Meyer look? (I know the results, just wondering about the process.)

His mistake pitches inside were crushed....

other than the 3 HR’s, he didn’t look bad at all. Pitched his way out of a couple of jams.

And he threw strikes, inside and outside
Did he keep his fastball and changeup down mostly?
Yes....except for two.

Predictable results on those.

Doesn't sound too bad - I can live with an occasional

“solo HR” mistake. (Not three every five innings, but…) Fastball velocity?

Korach mentioned about quite a few fastballs down Broadway

He mentioned this after Polanco hit a single in his second at bat.

Thanks - sounds like he's not a likely contender

for next year’s rotation, but possibly an upgrade over DiNardo for “long relief/spot starter”.

yes
Two of Eveland, Smith, Meyer and Braden would be such an upgrade
They say the defense is the last thing to go
Just got back from dinner, yum.

And now I’m ready to enjoy the rest of the A’s game. Oh, wait…

Grammar pedant pet peeve

KenKo just said our offense needs to take a “quantum leap”.

People use that phrase like a quantum leap is something huge. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s the smallest possible leap. By definition, you can’t leap less.

+1

A pet peeve of mine, as well.

In fairness, thought, Ken has really

made quantum leaps with his grammar.

Imagine that I said that in a though bubble
At least he never said

it’s been light years since our last win.

Then we need a lot of those
Stellar leaps...

just doesn’t have the same ring.

They've mostly been a station-to-station team for years, so I guess that counts as quantum leaps.
Given how bad the A's are scoring runs

I’d have to agree.

Scoring runs is overrated -

so many non-stat oriented baseball fans just don’t get that.

Not as bad as they overrate wins

W-L record? Talk about a useless stat.

It sounds silly, but they do say that about pitchers
Oh, right.

I was thinking of team W-L record.

Sort of spoils my joke, huh?

It also sounds silly but they do prefer Pythagenport third-order W-L
W-L record is a joke

I don’t even pay attention to the standings. That part is just luck – I look at the ratio of VORP to jock-adjusted ground balls.

I think VORPTJAGB+ is more important
Isn't that where they show the A's stat

when Comcast is showing the Giants’ stat?

Ask whoever does the Rotoworld updates
Sometimes the best stats are the simplest ones.
Maybe he meant like the television show.

You know, jump into someone else.

That actually makes sense.
Isn't that scary?
I'm scared.

Hold me?
I think so.
Yep. Like on those music nerd tshirts-- "I'm a fermata. Hold me."
Though really it should be

“I’m under a fermata. Hold me.”

Nothing should be taking "quantum leaps,"

unless they’re electrons.

Can we say that Cust has a quantum arm?

And how far can Jack throw an electron?

Hey, I just remembered something -

DiNardo’s really terrible.

So far he's no worse than Embree
He's our most experienced starter.
Yeah

He really shouldn’t be on any ML roster…even Oakland’s

He'd crack the Texas starting rotation, probably.
Granderson didn't test Cust's arm

Tigers must be feeling sorry for the A’s

The anti-tease is in progress.
man o man

what gives?

And can we get a third baseman who can hit OR field, either would suffice.

Di nardo is doing a tremendous job.....

If his job was to make he Tiger’s too tired to score in tomorrows game

This will make the 1-2-3 ninth much easier to take
This'll help balance the pythag record out a bit more
You are referring, of course, to "After the All-Star Break"?
I was hoping to at least win the Pythag ^3 standings

If we don’t, I’ll be disconsolate

See this is what DiNardo so fantastic:

He can give up four runs on a series of crushed line drives, but then BOOM – double play, just like that. He’s always just one pitch away from putting a ridiculously badly pitched inning out of our misery.

C'mon, Farnsy, we just need 11 walks here
Or five more of those.
By the way, Farnsworth is a great example of the

“velocity/movement/location” principle. He has velocity and that’s it. And he sucks.

Except for the Tigers

A cynic would say that’s just coincidence.

Sounds like the crowd thinks he sucks as well
They know it.

Everyone knows it. How was he not traded to the A’s. That’s what I want to know.

Or they're miffed Pudge was traded for him
Here we go... 8-run rally...
Let's be realistic.

4 run rally, then leaving the bases loaded to end it with a K, looking.

(checks where Cust is hitting)

OK that makes sense

why does the guy who did 5 innings, 3 runs gets the L

but the guys who do 1 inning 3 runs or 4 runs get to skate home?

It can't be a lot of fun to skate home in that weather
Bleah - Garza's getting rocked at Seattle

4-0 M’s over Rays in the 2nd.

My kid goes to school with his younger brother.
Could you maybe pass on a message to him from me

that his older brother sucks? Thanks.

Sure. I already sent the autographed ball back.

I could have just scribbled your message on the ball.

That's sad

I want TB to win, win and win again

Yay Kurt!
Boo Daric
It's all part of growing up.
4-27 since coming off DL

and Hannahan 0-26.

DFA is PH for Hannahan. Even Geren thinks Hannahan will fail (LOL)

DP to end it coming up
Because Garen is too uncreative to call for a

suicide squeeze here.

Good time to practice it
Jack never hits into DPs at home
If Emil Brown leads a team in RBI four straight seasons, that's pretty bad.
Any extra runs scored

that does not result in the A’s winning, is all bittermelons.

gad, i go away for a bit and come back to

completely un-do-able!

Never leave again.
I had to step away for a bit

... we haven’t lost yet?

still in the thick of it, thick of what..probably not mentionable.
It's time to go with an Aaron-Carlos-Ryan OF
I'm not sure Hank Aaron is really very good anymore.
Sweeney's right about the outside corner

All three calls have been terrible.

Ryan was pissed about his last PA too.
The ump is trying to help.
KK:

“He’s going to get kicked out of a game that’s over!”

That would be awesome.
You tell 'im, Sweeney
Fuck Eddings.

That was bullshit.

yeah, dammit

Without that bad call, we might have lost 10-4.

Game's over, but you don't expand the zone just to get it over with faster.

First strike was probably borderline. Second strike was definitely not one.

The one Sweeney was rung up one before on a 3-2 pitch,

when the score was close, was equally bad. Sweeney had every right to be upset, IMO.

I thought that one was a strike
Gameday suggests it might have barely caught the black

I missed it live.

Though Gameday shows both of the first two strikes to him in the ninth...

...as being more off the plate than the third strike in the seventh.

Man!

Ry=Pissed!

Ooooh, Angry Ryan.

Someone needs to wash out his mouth with soap. Volunteers?

You might have to hand out numbers for a raffle
Dang it

I gave up on the TV, but I’ll pretend I saw it and help.

Good Ryan

SHow some fire. Fuck the umpires

I don't think he wants to go that far
Geren is an ass.

He should have been all over Eddings.

Last out in a blowout. He has argued many other times, that would have bee

pointless

That's not the point.

He’s sending as message to all his players and the umpires. You never let someone walk all over you because it’s convienent. Eddings has a job to do, and Geren should have sent the message that he expects him to do it. The point would have set well with his young players. Sweeney shouldn’t have had to say a word to Eddings.

Besides which....

Eddings probably felt like he was putting a rookie player in his place due to him questioning his calls in the last AB.

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