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Open Thread: Game 101 - A's vs. Sox (cont'd)


Wow.

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Let's Go, Oak-land!
(clap) (clap) (clap)(clap)(clap)
clap clap clapclapclap

:: Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. ::

Oh, yay, it's that song again.
Those Red Sox fans are SOOO CRAZ-ZAY! America loves them
Ruh-roh, Casilla sighting
Can we talk about lobsters here?
Only if they're Rock Lobsters.
Doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-da-doo!

Rock Lobster!

New thread and they are up?

isn’t that bad luck?

We have to try something.
Haha, our luck can't get worse.

It doesn’t matter, nothing does unless they come back.

No. Casilla is bad luck.

The rest just doesn’t really matter.

I think I liked Jairo Garcia more than I like Santiago Casilla.
I don't like either one of them anymore.
Well, me neither, but at least one of them had promise.

The other one’s no longer so shiny.

Yes, its still bad luck.

Everyone is just bitter.

Hey, you didn’t get left behind!

There's a first time for everything!

That’s what they say.

Something you should be finding out about soon?

I don’t know. It depends on what you’re talking about.

If you only knew
I love the A's

almost as much as I love having 2 drinks at lunch to watch them!

no, I love the A’s more!!

I may need a drink after this one.
Its almost 5 PM in Boston

not that they need a reason.

Well shoot.....

Almost time for the second shift in the bars.

Guess they won't have to use Bailey three days in a row, huh?
Wait for the 9th.
Pls dont suck.
Casilla will do his best to make it so Boston won't have to use Papelbon

That ship sailed a long, long time ago.

....

……..
grumble.

Korach: "Cust plays the carom"

Me: “Oh no, don’t do that!”

This is why 'ruh roh' and 'Casilla' go together
Casilly, because things get out of hand when he pitches
We Want Paplebon
we want Bailey.
apparently, Devean George is the savior.

although you probably already knew that.

See, this is why trading Wuertz would be dumb.
Ken is right...

“When your starter goes 5 and a third, it’s a tough game to win”

I agree, especially with the heavy bullpen use.

Casilla is just like Cust

Only he pitches.

Earlier in the season, before the break at Tampa, I was certain he had thrown his last pitch for us.

What the fucking are we holding onto him for?

What are we waiting for him to discover?

Let him discover it some place else.

Except he hasn't been our best hitter for 2 years in a row
Seriously, RLangford

if you want to make a case that getting on base and hitting homers don’t matter to an offense, make the case. Otherwise it’s pretty hard to argue that Cust has been a bad player overall for the A’s. He’s slumping badly this year, and even so he’s leading the team in HRs by a large margin and is 2nd in OPS to Kennedy.

Doesn't that say more about the lack of dingerz on this team than anything else?
It's about that, too

although not quite so much the last two years, when Cust had good totals (26 and 33, IIRC).

The guy got on base a lot in 07 and 08, and hit for power. Those are the two most important thing for an offense. Yes, he’s a really bad fielder. So they should DH him, not DFA him.

I think he's talking about Casilla.
Casilla is garbage

DFA if there ever was one.

Yeah

this makes me miss Mecir.

hehe

At least Mecir had a great backstory
I thought he had a clubfoot.

Didn’t know about the back problems.

and an even better limp.
Cherith.

Cherith Cutestory.

Yeah, and it's not really his fault that his 16 homeruns lead the team

He should never be “THE” power guy.

Still not a good thing considering how bad the offense has been over that time
Okay, here goes

His stats don’t accurately reflect his value. OPS doesn’t account for strikeouts. Before you pretend strikeouts are like other outs only better because of no double-play possibility, consider that Cust’s strikeout rate was so ridiculous that he has little chance of making a productive out when you need one.

Additionally, walks just aren’t as valuable with a team like the A’s, with a team where nobody is hitting for average. So Cust isn’t that valuable to the A’s walking in the middle of a bat line-up.

And he’s just a bad player this year. He’s impeding the development of much more valuable players, taking up space for little reason.

Finally, I’m just tired of watching bad baseball. And with the exception of his three-true-outcomes skill set, he can’t do anything else. Beyond stats, aren’t we entitled to just want to watch people play well?

With power and no BA (due to K's) he's really an OK 5th place hitter.

The problem is that relies on having a decent 3rd and cleanup hitter.

I still don't think those points outweigh

the values of his homers. This guy has hit 16 of the team’s 71 HR this year — not counting Holliday, it’s 16 of the 60 still on the roster. That’s basically a quarter of the team’s HR production.

On bad baseball: I agree he shouldn’t be in the field. Unfortunately, Hairston is hurt so Geren is kind of stuck. 2 of those young players managed to screw up a fly ball to right-center last night. 2 others screwed one up the last time the team came through Boston.

The best argument I think is the one about letting younger players play.

Pointing out the screw up of others,

doesn’t make Cust a better fielder. It just points out that others sometimes screw up.

You’re overvaluing 16 home runs.

Cust is a bad fielder

So is Big Papi. So is Travis Haffner.

My point about Davis and Sweeney is that Cust isn’t the only one who makes dumb mistakes. In fact, some of the young players who might play in his stead would make some of their own.

This is the worst HR-hitting team in the AL. Giving up 1/5 of their homers seems kinda unwise to me.

He’s a limited player, but if you keep him at DH the things he does well can really help a team win. I agree he’s been way below par this year, and if he can’t be better than this next year they need to figure out another option. But he’s been the A’s’ most productive hitter for the last 2 seasons. I’m sorry you don’t like watching strike outs. But replacing him with anyone on the A’s roster in 07 or 08 would have cost the team wins. And watching HRs is fun, too.

at least cust has some good moments through his inconsistencies

casilla has been consistently bad for about 2 and half monthes

Fangraph will be interesting for this one.
they're hating on breslow. -0.525 WPA
Were those earned runs?!?!?!
Yes.

If Cust were fast and bad hands, he would get an error. Instead, it’s a gift double.

Official scoring is a joke sometimes
No argument here.

He only gave up one earned run.

But both of the runs were earned.

Wuertz was charged with two earned.

He gave up a 3-run bomb in a high-leverage situation

Therefore, the large negative WPA.

Oh, no debate here.

It’s just a joke that, as far as I can tell, their WPA does not include fielding. It’d be tough, but using an inaccurate system kinda makes things worst.

I don’t think Cust got a negative WPA assigned for that double.

always a silver lining
I'm predicting peaks and valleys
Not easy for a team with Springer, Casilla, and EGon in the bullpen together

unless you’re planning on having a lot of mopping-up to do.

So why haven't we traded Springer to the Cards yet?
Casilla, get them out.... NOW!!!!
Woohoo, we got an out!
Another Paplebon blown save coming right up
Assuming Casilla keeps it a save situation
We can only hope
I like the way you hope
2 hands Cust!!!!
Using two hands confuses the man
He never uses two hands

And he’s not good enough to get away with it.

He catch ball

an inning too late.

Green is out, Lowrie is at SS
Two outs for two runs, that's a good trade, right?
Can you pass another nail?
Goal for the 9th

Hit it to Green.

+ a million
That's a lot of foul balls into the Boston dugout.
Green is out, Lowrie is at SS
They're on to my grand scheme!
9th inning rally!

Thanks You

honestly I could care less if they win now.

kidding

Gilmore girls...nice

Hi, gals.

Hey girls, how you looking? Sooo good!
SHE HAS AN A'S TATTOO!!!

And an A’s shirt…I LOVE IT!!!!!

They could have on an Angels shirt and they’d still (almost) look sexy.

SACRILIGE!

BURN HIM!

I said that they would “almost” look sexy!

He turned me into a newt

I got better. Kinda.

Just hope the A's

make it interesting in the ninth.

Give us the TeA'se!
you want a.....tease?

They’re good at teasing.

Holy shit. I'm pretty sure my life just significantly changed for the better.

http://lifehacker.com/5311002/open-a-banana-like-a-monkey

The downside of that is that you have to deal with the seed.
clean up's always the tough part.
When it rains, wear a rain jacket.
i like the rain
Internet was down for like 20 minutes, what did I miss?
Bullpen fail
Bullpen?!

I’d say they had some help.

Whatever. Regardless of Cust not catching the fly ball, Breslow gave up the 800 foot homer.

The Red Sox have an 8-5 lead and we’re in the bottom of the ninth.

Boston leads 8-5. We're in the ninth.
were you here when Breslow gave up a 3 run shot?

or the 2 runs after that?

i missed that

Yeah theres really no reason to rehash.

but many reasons to cry.

Korea nuked Mae West, but things seem to have been rerouted appropriatly.
casilla making a name for himself
28 consecutive days with no days off?

man…hairston hurt them.

Yeah, we need to remember the context

a) the team isn’t that good to begin with
b) they have the least experienced starting rotation any team has had for a few decades
c) the closer is a rookie
d) one of the starting OFs is day-to-day
e) 28 days without a day off

They don’t have the depth of talent to weather that without some problems.

This guy is slower than Mike Moore

Santiago Casilla has an impressive 6.14 ERA now.

still lower than Gio's!
Just missed everything due to meetings.
it's time for them to come home to oakalnd
Feel bad for Gio.

He didn’t deserve this. Of course, he didn’t deserve the ND against the Twinkies either.

I wish he could've gone 7 today

Gio Gonzalez improved his ERA to 7.38, though!

The REAL problem today...

…was Gio going 5 1/3

all things considered

he has exceeded expectations even doing that.

Cabrera has kept his hitting streak alive.

Follow it up, Kurt.

Can someone please explain why defensive indifference makes any sense?
cause they indifferent whether u advance or not
Why risk throwing the ball away when you only need one more out, or they need more than one run to tie?
Yeah, but you also have the chance to throw the runner out.

By ignoring the runner, you’re already saying it doesn’t matter if he scores. So if you throw the ball into CF in attempting to throw him out and he scores, are you really that much worse off?

It's usually used the run doesn't matter.

They’d rather take the safe route and just get the guy out in a popup or a grounder/throw to first.

But you don't know that's going to happen.
You are correct.

You don’t know what is going to happen. I’m saying that in situations where it will take more than one run to tie the game, you can make decisions that will help you get that last out or two.

One of those decisions is to place your fielders in a spot where they can more easily get a grounder, and that will give the runner a bigger leadoff. The other is to not throw the ball to the base when the runner stealing, because if you try to force it, you may overthrow the ball, allowing the run to score and not showing any outs for it.

Basically someone has to cover the base and creates a hole that a rutine ball can be hit through.
That's not a bad point.

I still feel like the ~25% chance of throwing the runner out is a better bet than the ball finding that hole as the 2B/SS covers.

I don't know, but it makes me think of Bon Jovi.
I don't care. You got a problem with that?
I'm defensively indifferent.
Come on Zook!!!

keep the hit streak going.

Hit em where they ain't

whoops too late.

Haha - Gameday has Zooks hitting left-handed
Cust redeem thyself with a tater'.
I want to believe, but my heart says it will be a "strickout"
Even if he does, people will blame him for there not being enough men on base to tie the game
I'd settle for him setting the table for Tommy Time
Set up for Cust to prove me wrong

This is the situation you’d want him in. Just get on.

Come on Cust!

I'll take either or both,

doesn’t matter to me.

damn...solid contact...just right too Pedroia
Cust walk, Everidge HR

Pretty plz.

Rats. Little sawed-off fucker.
not liking the day games
try writing about it
longball from Cust, followed by Everidge's first career hr?

Will you take a walk before the home run?

The one great thing about baseball

is that there is always a tomorrow.

it’s like a soap opera, i’m hooked

Or a scab you just can't stop picking....
or a sunburn that wont stop peeling...
They're got to be a morning after....
You succubus
Can I have yellow with a side of white?
I need about a tree-fitty.

It was about that time that I realized that the Girl Scout was a six story high Loch Ness monster……

cust muight need that tree fitty

to catch the Greyhound bus or home

If we're going to lose, atleast make it interesting.

Hit it out, cust.

Split with the Sox is not too bad

All things considered.

I loook forward to the day...

… when it pisses us off.

+1

For me, that day is NOW.

Oh I am pissed off

but that doesn’t change anything. WE got beat, we beat ourselves. It’s over. Tomorrow is another day. For some reason, today i am having trouble typing the word “tomorrow”.

fail

Oh well, at least my GOG guess was right on the series outcome shit

Woulda been nice to go 3-1 against one of the better teams in baseball

As it is, a split is alright.

Let’s get ’em tomorrow.

Very un-Custian....swinging on a 2-0 pitch
so close to series victory
A split in Fenway is GOOD

All things considered, we’ll take it. Got a gift on Tuesday

We've gotten many gifts over the last few weeks
what 's up with all the gilmore girl pictures
They're kinda the rally icon for games Gio starts.

Don’t you ever question them again, okay?

WHAT'S UP WITH ALL THE GILMORE GIRL PICTURES.
whats up with all the Gilmore Girls pics...

where they are wearing clothes?

and whatever happened to the young one
The young one travels with pants.
the Young Ones

shouldn’t be afraid
to live
Love
Theres a song to be sung
cuz we may not be the young ones very long…

Where, Ric, the People's Poet?
I'm trying to free-form!!!!
Adrian: I'm bored, bored, bored, of having a losing record!
I left when it was 1-0...

What the fuck happened?

Wuertz, Breslow and Springer were charged with a combined five runs.

Cust misplayed a ball in the outfield.

I meant Casilla and not Springer, though.

That misplayed ball changed the whole game.
CUUUUUUUUUUUST!!!
found this picture of Ortiz at the post game intview

i think someone just asked him about his steroid use….

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