Athletics Nation

ISWYDT

pam5981 - June 6, 2009 reply

A's streak for 6 game homer streak came to an end tonight

but the 8 doubles sure made up for it

Wreckonized - June 6, 2009 reply

I'd say it's almost certain that our pitchers will go through another stretch as bad as...

this one is good.

But still… they’ve shown the potential that scouts and stat heads raved about.

Sure, we’re sort of in it right now… but that’s not what really excites me. The future of this pitching staff really does.

brenarlo - June 6, 2009 reply

Let's get to .500 in a quick and see where the chips fall

Sure wish we didn’t start out in such a hole this season but this streak is impressive.

ohtobe21likehuston - June 6, 2009 reply

We're channeling

I had the same thought about the loss column with the Angels. If anyone really thinks Texas wins 90+ games and runs away with the division, be my guest. I remain skeptical of the pitching staff— and they don’’t have Hamilton. If the A’s are closer to the Angles than this on July 4, forget Holliday being moved. Rather Beane will be in the market for a 3Bman and bullpen help.

A few observations about this game:

1) It’s been said before, but i’ll say it again: Cahill needs one more pitch. The command was good, the sinker and the change worked well, but whether it’s a 2 seamer or something else he needs one more piece to keep hitters more off balance;

2) I really like Kennedy’s approach— lots of inside-out swings;

3) Giambi has that “eye of the tiger” look again in key spots. He’ll never be what he was, but if he can hit in key spots partic. given the surge in walks Holliday is liable to get from here on out, he can help this team a lot;

4) Speaking of Holliday, I was impressed on multiple levels tonight. He held back and took a walk right before G’s 2B on a pitch he could have chased which might have changed the whole sequence; his RBI hit was a thing of beauty on a real pitcher’s pitch. And if he doesn’t make that catch in the 8th, who knows what might have happened;

5) Cabrera shouldn’t have jogged;

6) Geren was fine. Cahill was gassed— to leave him in was to invite a real downer like a Huff 3 run HR. Not his fault Ziggy failed. And Bailey had had two days of rest. He’ll be there tomorrow if need be.

7) The bullpen is becoming a major problem— half of them are now bascially unreliable. You can;t survie on just Bailey, Wuertz and Breslow in LOOGY situations. Beane may have to address this soon if Ziegler, Springer and Casilla can’t get their acts together.

Speaking of Giambi's "eye of the tiger" look,

I know plenty of fans don’t buy into “Braden’s fearlessness” and “Giambi’s clubhouse presence” being relevant to individual or team success, but it was interesting to hear Ken Korach tonight talking about what an impact Giambi has had in teaching/developing a “winning atmosphere” with the young players – meaning teaching them what it means to play to win, keeping on them to play hard and play to win, etc.

Now Ken is a pretty darn bright guy and he’s with the team every day – I would hope his observations, especially when he is so vehement, would hold traction with some of the more skeptical folk.

well contrary to past seasons

We have four-fifths of the top of the lineup all with playoff and WS experience.

I heard a bit of Ray's pregame from yesterday

and he talked about the clubhouse fight he got involved in between Reggie and Billy North.

Apparently, North had lollygagged it on the first grounder he hit in the season (1974, IIRC), and a few days later Reggie got on him for it in the clubhouse. They started fighting, and Vida was in the next locker and somehow looked like he was getting involved, and Ray jumped in to prevent his starter that day (Vida) from getting hurt. Ray got pushed backwards on the floor and ended up needing surgery to repair some ruptured vertebrae. (BTW, Ray sounds very mild mannered but is obviously a really tough dude).

He told Ken that it always ends up being the players themselves who police stuff like hustling. The manager can get on guys, but in Ray’s opinion it’s up to the leaders among the players themselves to set the tone and call guys out who aren’t playing the game properly or pulling their own weight.

hopefully someone polices Cabrera then

though I think the shredding of the uni may have already done it. He was definitely lollygagging on Holliday’s two out 2B.

Thefirstletterofthealphabet - June 7, 2009 reply

If you are going to fault Cabrera for lollygagging on Holiday’s two out double, you should also fault Suzuki for not stealing second when the O’s decided to not hold him on first. Baseball etiquette.

don't kid yourself

Foss is the F’n Man!!!

That's probably true, but it's also one of the things

that most disappoints me about Geren: he just seems far too tolerant of that stuff. I agree that players need to get on each other, but I also think part of being a leader is conveying high expectations and then following through with your actions.

I was mostly struck by Fosse's account of, well, accountability

He really seemed to think the main influences on a player were his teammates. Maybe some managers take a more active role, while others let the leaders among the players step forward. Maybe Geren has decided to do that because of the presence of Giambi and Holliday, and the former presence of Nomar. Then again, maybe Beane got those guys partly because he felt he wanted that kind of leadership on a team managed by Geren.

Actually I wouldnt mind Geren's

“throw em out there and see what happens” approach, if it actually yielded results that would be henceforth put into practice.

As we all know that doesn’t happen too often from either side.

1974 was a unique situation.

Alvin Dark had taken over the dugout that season, and he wasn’t an in-your-face tpye manager. (The A’s wouldn’t have responded to him anyway; they had won two World Series without him). Reggie was coming off an MVP season and assumed a leadership role. Although North didn’t take kindly to being scolded, most of the other A’s sided with Reggie, which was a rare thing.

As for Fosse, he came back and hit two big homerunss in the playoffs, one in the ALCS, and another in the Series clincher.

67MARQUEZ - June 6, 2009 reply

if you don't believe that guys like Giambi matter, then you've probably not played sports on a competitive level.

Shame and playing for teammates matters A LOT.

stm72 - June 7, 2009 reply

Excellent post Jason!

I would write an enthralling piece about how the A's are playing well

but I am too enthralled in the concert, as Jordin Sparks has scrapped the setlist and decided to play the entire “H to He, Who Am the Only One” LP by Van Der Graaf Generator instead. Rumors were flying backstage that she was gonna encore with the whole “Flying Teapot” trilogy by French acid-progmasters Gong, but we’ll see… it might just be the usual encore of Robert Wyatt’s “Muddy Mouse” suite.

Huh?

ohtobe21likehuston - June 6, 2009 reply

lol

chipper1001 - June 6, 2009 reply

Yeah, I don't think her whole "Metal Machine Music" thing worked out all that well at her Universal Orlando show

it was burnout

her “method approach” to Lou Reed, where she shot up a whole bag of heroin every night for six months, really took its toll…. plus, she was kind of aced out by the whole Hannah Montana tour, which as you’ll recall was devoted to a dramatic restaging of the works of seminal Marxist post-punkers Gang of Four as one of those Chinese Communist “People’s Plays”.

I can't wait for the Jonas Brothers to roll into town with their "The Feeding of the 5,000" show

the Jonas Brothers

really fell flat with their to-the-lighting-cue reconstruction of Genesis’ “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” tour… they should just leave that kind of stuff to The Musical Box and people who know how to put on a damn Slipperman costume, fer Chrissakes.

They SO lucked out with that awesome follow-up, where they devoted a whole CD to the works of electro-pioneer Bruce Haack.

Have you had a chance to hear

Ashley Tisdale perform Kevin Ayers’ Bananamour? Apparently, she was determined to do a tribute to Ollie Halsall, and after rehearsing a Patto set she decided to go with the Ayers’ piece instead.

Your guys' Prog refrences are even too obsucre

for me.

I always thought it spelled Prague

I need to travel more.

Actually they spell it

Praha

So then what does the devil wear?

I see where you are going with this

If I was the devil I would wear Anne Hathaway.

to quote spinal tap...

would she fit you like a flesh tuxedo?
would you sink her with your pink turpedo?

stm72 - June 7, 2009 reply

Talk about bum cakes, my girl's got 'em

winchester5 - June 7, 2009 reply

oh these are nothing

wait’ll Nick and I get into the crazy Deutscherock scene and start comparing the teen stars of today with Agitation Free and Neu!

I don't believe you Can pull that off

bobnothing - June 6, 2009 reply

stop acting so

Frumpy.

I'm getting real tired of seeing Damo Suzuki's face

when I look in the mirror.

Gaijin_Suketto - June 7, 2009 reply

I wonder if I am the only person on AN

who has actually met Damo Suzuki… his is the only autograph I own of anyone famous as well, now that my hat signed by Rich Harden got washed.

emperor nobody - June 7, 2009 reply

lost in all of this are the spine-chills that pasting one's ears to

L’il Wayne – steamrolling his way through the angular, shreddingly dissonant catalog of the late axemaster Sonny Sharrock – can produce…. or the sense of pure exhilaration that can be brought about by his searing interpretation of “Hergest Ridge” by Mike Oldfield in which he performs all 309 instruments’ parts using only his voice and a set of spoons.

as chanelled thru John Zorns

interpretations of Ornette Coleman’s shredtastic anthems on Spy vs Spy.

nice!!!

I love Spy vs, Spy, AWESOME record, nice choice =)

You’d also dig Pat Metheny’s “Song X” record with Ornette, it’s a harmolodic Beast!

Have it on vinyl

Have it on cd.

Hell I might even have it on cassette.

the reissue is dope

it has a whole other several tunes from the sessions tacked on.

You really haven't lived until you've seen...

….Katy Perry play one of her Magma tribute concerts.

Her version of Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh goes on for three or four hours. Intense!

GreenNGoldSooner - June 6, 2009 reply

you bastard

you beat me to the MAGMA references!!!!

If anyone reading this doesn’t know Christian Vander’s legendary Magma, go get the live record from 1975 w/Didier Lockwood (then 16 years old!) on violin, it is sicker than sick.

Magma, to explain, are this insane French band that sing in a language that doesn’t really exist, other than in the minds of their leader, the whiplash-dextrous drummer Mr. Vander. The band is a concept group where every song and album embellished the story, which in their case features humans in the future fleeing the dying Earth and colonizing a nearby planet called Kobaia. And if that ain’t stony seventies enough for ya, I got a mood ring for every finger LOLOL

Ollie Halsall=helluva player

now if you will excuse me, I have an appointment with this tribute CD here, entitled “Astigmatic but Hangin’ Tough,” in which the Boy Bands of the 1990s pay homage to the music of legendary Polish composer Krzysztof Komeda.

Opposite Day

Here’s a video of indie rock darlings Arcade Fire doing a killer cover of the song that won the 1965 Eurovision Song Competition.

GreenNGoldSooner - June 7, 2009 reply

I once listened

to the entire metal machine music record (LP). It took me about 30 minuted to figure out that the end of the record had an endless loop

Future Ed - June 6, 2009 reply

best use of the infinite runout groove on an LP

surely must be the first side of “Peter Gabriel II” (that’s the “scratching” cover) where the Prophet 5 note at the end of “White Shadow” goes on forever if you leave the turntable on.

IIRC

The Manic Street Preachers wanted to make album cover for their first (or possibly second) album out of sandpaper, so it literally would destroy the rest of your record collection as you took it in and out.

now that’s scratching

bobnothing - June 6, 2009 reply

the first to do the sandpaper thing

was the incredible guitarist Vini Reilly, aka, The Durutti Column, on their debut, called “The Return of the Durutti Column,” on Factory Records from 1980.

http://www.cerysmaticfactory.info/fact14.html

I thought factory couldn't put that out

due to lack of funds?

after they listed their cat as an official release, anyway

bobnothing - June 6, 2009 reply

no, they were made and sold, with an EP included!

Ian Curtis

threw a hell of a fastball.

Gaijin_Suketto - June 7, 2009 reply

Vini Reilly is brilliant.

brian.only - June 6, 2009 reply

one of the great delay/echoplex guitar players

although it should be noted that the idea to put a record in a sandpaper sleeve was thought up by Guy Debord and the Situationniste Internationale in the 1950s… The Durutti Column just implemented the concept.

emperor nobody - June 7, 2009 reply

I bought a jordin sparks record

it ruined my whole collection

Future Ed - June 7, 2009 reply

I noticed that but was distracted by Chavy's press conference

about donating his salary and pension directly into Matt Holliday’s bank account.

yes, it was mighty generous of Eric

to just suddenly renounce worldly possessions and wealth and just take off to join the Gyoto Monks like that.

Oh man....

For me...

…the capper was definitely Jordin’s amazing a cappella trio arrangements of the music of Neu! which she performed with special guests Don Van Vliet and Crocus Behemoth.

Brian in 317 - June 7, 2009 reply

It's been really fun watch this team as of a late.

I can’t help but feel like it’ll continue as this staff is damn exciting.

Boonee - June 6, 2009 reply

BTW

“Mazzaro” world is one of the funniest, and most apt, coinages I have seen in a long, long time.

By my calculations, there should have been upwards of 2500 different 5 game winning streaks in the AL since the 1969 expansion. I guarantee you can count the number that a) featured a sub .400 team and b) had that team outsocre its competition by over 5 runs a game in the streak on the fingers of two hands.

Truly “Mazzaro” world.

Antonio Alfonseca's hands?

The sub .400 part could easily happen

if the five-game winning streak is early in the season. Like games 2-6.

iglew - June 6, 2009 reply

true enough

I’ll amend it to post May 1

jasonthea - June 7, 2009 reply

Don't know if I'm confused or what.

But didn’t Cahill give up just one run. He left with Scott and Huff on base.
Then Ziegler came in and almost got a double play but only Huff was out. So the only runner on by Cahill now is Scott. Then came the infield hit and then the home run.
So only one run should be charged to Cahill.
But even mlb’s box score shows two runs charged to Cahill. So Im just a little bit confused.

Athletix Man - June 6, 2009 reply

The way it works is that if you leave with a runner on base who is forced,

the new runner is still your responsibility. So:

Single
Single
(pitching change)
Fielder’s choice
3-run HR

is still going to charge two runs to the starter.

In contrast:

Walk
(pitching change)
Double Play
HR

charges the run to the reliever.

thanks for that

stm72 - June 6, 2009 reply

And the logic is clear

Ziegler got an out. There were still two runners on. No way he should be charged for one of those runners.

jasonthea - June 7, 2009 reply

Nice win bitches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I’m off to Reno to take the casino’s money!

let’s go for the sweepage tomorrow boys and girls! wooohoo1

mrod - June 6, 2009 reply

Only 6 (!) games under .500!

Um, I could get used to this whole 9-runs-a-game thing.

I also have a lot of free Pepsi coupons to redeem from Lucky now.

And my season record is 6-5. Sweeeet.

whiteshoes40 - June 6, 2009 reply

you are doing better than the A's

keep going

Wreckonized - June 6, 2009 reply

Free pepsi!

Did you get the free round table pizza also?

Free food and an A’s win rules!

oaklandSMASH - June 7, 2009 reply

LeopoldBloom...I found it...

the best scene from saving private ryan…

link

stm72 - June 6, 2009 reply

crap

the link

stm72 - June 6, 2009 reply

Hannahan

now holds A’s record for errorless games at third base. Just thought that was interesting. Unfortunately, he may also end up with the record for hitless games at third base as well.

Wow, are “we” really heating up, or are we just playing against crappy competition? Hard to say, but it’s awesome the way these five young starters performed this week; it seemed like each one decided they had to out-do the others. It reminds me of the early ’00s when Muldy, Huddo, Zeets, and Canada Boy were dealing.

After last night 7-4 in games attended.

Brian in 317 - June 7, 2009 reply

The A's did have a very tough schedule over the first month of the season or so

I think things have been evening out a bit lately.

Nick - June 7, 2009 reply

A fair reading of the AL right now would be

Two very good teams: Boston and NY

Two pretty good teams: TB (look at their run differential) and Texas

Three above average teams: Detroit, Toronto and LAA

One average team: Minnesota

Two below average teams: Chicago

Three pretty crappy teams: Seattle, Kansas City and Baltimore

But by now the A’s have played them all save Minnesota and they come in next. Where are the A’s in this list? Somewhere between crappy and below average, with a bullet.

jasonthea - June 7, 2009 reply

that's not where the A's belong according to Mark Buehrle

Future Ed - June 7, 2009 reply

Beyond the Boxscore analyzed difficulty of schedule and Pythagorean standings (and adjusted Pythag standings)

They did this back on May 11th. The A’s came in at that point as the 3rd-unluckiest team (this was before the debacle in Detroit). In the comments, there’s an analysis of strength of schedule that lists the A’s as having played the 2nd-hardest schedule in the majors up til that point.

Nick - June 7, 2009 reply

The ChiSox count as two below average teams?

Are you also counting their broadcast crew?

GreenNGoldSooner - June 7, 2009 reply

Steve Stone

Is Solid. Hawk is just there for shitz and giggles…. Where did that DJ guy go? Was he fired?

Colorado Fan - June 7, 2009 reply

FTFY

Hawk is just there for ~~shitz~~ Schlitz and giggles.

Nick - June 7, 2009 reply

Hottest team

as of today: Oakland (6 in a row)

Just how it goes

Playoff teams smoke bad teams. Its when you are dropping series to teams you should beat that you are in trouble…

SeanR - June 7, 2009 reply

You know

It crossed my mind that Hannahan is Mr. Reliable at third base. If the rest of the lineup can stay hot, he handles the hot corner pretty well. My hope is, is that he is a late bloomer at the plate, because he can sure pick ‘em. Although, Crosby has been looking good over there, too. He’s a competitor. I guess that’s what the 7 and 8 spots in the lineup are for… I’ve always viewed the #9 slot for a good hitter that qualifies for 1 thru 3, but is odd man out. Kind of like a lead-off hitter type that got pushed out of the top 3 or silent favorite. I liked when Ellis batted 9th. He seemed to do well in that slot. A little off the subject…. just rambling on.

The Number 9 hitter gets the fewest PAs every season.

So putting a good hitter there is a waste. Every hitter in a batting order gets about 20 less PAs than the guy in front of them. That means it’s about a 160 PA difference between a leadoff hitter and a #9 hitter. Your worst hitter should always hit 9th.

sleepingcobra - June 7, 2009 reply

keep an eye

on lineups of other teams. Sometimes, they will drop a good hitter down there. Put a power hitter in the #3 and #4 spots. Then, double-trouble throughout the game. The A’s sometimes do that.

Example

Red Sox

I think you're both right in some sense

You do not want someone batting 9th whom you feel is one of your best overall hitters because he will lose so many PAs throughout the course of a season. However, you do want someone who when he reaches is the right guy to have on base ahead of your best, most proficient, versatile hitters – that is often someone with great speed, or a very good baserunner.

That’s why teams like the “double leadoff” idea. Your #1 hitter is a good hitter who can steal and run the bases, while your #9 hitter is a not so good hitter who can steal and run the bases.

Nico - June 7, 2009 reply

You actually show my point with your example, by the way

Nick Green’s career OBP is .313, Pedroia’s .376.

Nico - June 7, 2009 reply

I believe

it is just another way to mix it up… by no means am I saying that’s the way it should be all the time

My hope is, is that he is a late bloomer at the plate

give it up, he is a 29 year old 3b with a career 660 OPS. to me he’s a fine backup and defensive replacement, and plan B if/when some other AAAA 3b the a’s acquire in the next few weeks fails.

xbhaskarx - June 7, 2009 reply

He doesn't have all

too much major league experience… so it isn’t like he’s been struggling for years. This is the first time he’s been able to play in the majors with veterans… so, with that said…. I hope it helps him because he plays a mean third base