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Rajai the new Marco - A's Walk off with Wild Win

A's 3, Rangers 2

And you all wondered why Raj wasn't in the starting lineup.

"Geren told me, ‘We're going to use you late'", a winded Davis told Ray Fosse and Glen Kuiper following a two-run, walk-off three-bagger that completed an improbable three-run rally in the ninth.

But me and Raj, well, we've been here before, haven't we?

For awhile it was a nifty display of nothingness.  Until the ninth, that is.

The A's nearly wasted yet another in a string of stellar performances by Brett Anderson, falling victim to a 1-2 punch of Dustin Nippert and Neftali Feliz, who made his big-league debut. Cameo appearances by Frank Francisco, Eddie Guardado , and Darren O'Day, were seemingly for tease effect, until the A's cracked the Rangers' sixth pitcher of the night, CJ Wilson.

Anderson set the tone early with a 1-2-3 first inning that was so effortless and swift, most of the 10,523 fans that bothered to purchase a ticket were still getting comfortable.

Kurt Suzuki singled with one out in the bottom half, noteworthy only because the A's next knock came two hours later.

Nippert, who has taken this reliever-turned-starter thing to heart, allowed just that one hit and two walks in five frames of near-perfect work.  He struck out five batters, before giving way to Feliz, who surely made his teammates happy with a six-up, six-down outing in which he hit triple figures on the radar gun while striking out the four first batters he's ever faced in the majors.  Welcome to the show, kid.  

The Rangers got to Anderson for a run in the fifth, and were fortunate to get that one.  A pair of singles wrapped around a walk on a close 3-2 pitch to Andruw Jones loaded the bases with no out.  A double play ball scored Hank Blalock, and Anderson escaped with limited damage by striking out Elvis Andrus.

Texas tacked on a second run in the eighth, before the A's threatened in the latter half. Cliff Pennington singled for the A's second hit, followed by a walk to Adam Kennedy, but Suzuki flied out to end the inning.

That merely set the stage for an amA'sing ninth.

O'Day got Scott Hairston on a ground ball out, before being lifted for Wilson.  Cust singled  to shallow right, while AN readied itself for the nightly tease.  Nomar Garciaparra struck out.  But Tommy Everidge came through with a base hit, and Mark Ellis drove home Cust with a single.  Bobby Crosby pinch-ran for Everidge, and soon ran home with the tying run on Davis' double down the right-field line.  Ellis came in behind Crosby, and soon Davis was being mobbed by delirious teammates. 

0 recs  |  269 comments

Comments

Oh, it hasn't been mentioned that I can see:

Nelson Cruz injured himself trying to play the carom on Raj’s hit. He was helped off the field by two teammates; it looked like he twisted his ankle, possibly pretty badly.

any truth to the faceplant that KK was referring to?
Thanks Nico.

Meant to mention it.

This does not help in their slim quest to catch the slegnA

Kinsler on DL and now Cruz injured.

Not good.

I do not like players getting injured but was happy to see Vlad and Hunter out on the DL and look what happened.

I will make an exception and hope that Lackey, Morales, Figgins and a few others all end up on the DL with pulled hammy’s. All at once. Then when they come off, 5 new players go on DL.

Knowing this will not happen I do rest well knowing they cannot keep hitting like this and their shitty pitching will be exposed for the fraud that it is.

on the other hand

loux did well even if someone totally tanks in the rotation right now. but when you take him out of the ’pen, then they have a problem.

all this, and did you watch the Dodgers mega-tease? I swear they hit Ethier on purpose.

I thought that hit the knob of Ethier's bat

Manny has been very shitty of late.

Jus a slump though, I don’t think it has anything to do with the positives but that is just my opinion.

BARF!

Trainman, I understand that you hate the Angels, but can you please refrain from rooting for Texas until their series with the A’s is over?

barf?
yeah it's kind of like choosing evils

if we beat the rangers, this is a surrogate for the slegnA getting closer to winning the west.

therefore, barf.
just thought was an interesting word to start a post...
interesting

but appropriate i suppose

barf.

barf’s a fun word, like garbanzo or supercilious.

Shall we tell Pam about "supercilious"

or has she had enough etymological fun for the day?

I think you should!
Never. You should know better.
You can look in that nifty dictionary you found.
Oh, fine.

You’re the one who offered!

I am a tease.

You’re a big girl. You can take care of yourself.

???

Ack. I’m showing online etymology dictionary is down. You, too?

LOL. Yeah.
We broke it.
All right, I'll tell you.

Super-cilia means “eyebrows”. So to take a supercilious attitude means to raise one’s eyebrows.

When this was first taught to me, I was told that the cilia were the eyebrows and “super” meant they were raised, but that’s wrong. Cilia are actually the eyelids, and thus by extension also the eyelashes, and supercilia (upper-eyelashes) are the eyebrows.

Cilia itself derives from celare (“to hide”) because the eyelids hide the eyes. Celare is root to zillions of words.

cilia = (also means)

tail-like projections on animal cells

yes, and all hairs that serve

similar function. By way of eyelashes and nosehairs.

It’s all one enormous etymological family. Cell, cellar, and conceal

Don’t you know you always chose the lesser of two weavles.
yes, as was foretold

in threads of yore.

Did I say anywhere where I was ROOTING for Texas

This is what I said

There are positives IF we do NOT come back
__________________________________________________________________________
1) The most important to me is Texas gains a half on slegnA. I hate the slegnA so much that since we are so far out of it, Texas winning has it’s benefits.

The only negative is that Geren left Anderson in too long and too many pitches. We must preserve this gem of an arm.

I root for the A’s every game for the last 20 years but like I said, Texas winning is not a bad thing.

I did NOT say I was ROOTING for Texas

10,523

There are lies and then there are outright lies.

um yeah no kidding

3-4k tops.

seriously?

that few?!

if you don't count the players
....you were there....
My neighbor is a Rangers fan

and I went over to his place and watched a couple of innings on his TV and the stands looked as empty as I’ve ever seen them. The bad baseball is part of it but also the schedule that has the A’s and Rangers playing 19 times but the Yankees and Red Sox only come out to Oakland once. I like the balanced schedule better.

even though Texas is playing well this year

still rather face them 19 times than the Yankees 12 times or whatever it would be in a balanced schedule

I'm just saying as a gate attraction it's not good for baseball

to play any team 19 times. People get tired of seeing the same teams play over and over.

I HATE the unbalanced schedule

Do you realize the A’s play, literally, 1/3 of their games against just the Angels, Rangers, and Mariners, and — here in August — haven’t yet had a trip to Baltimore?

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Of all the things that happened there

that’s all that I remembered.

well, at least I'm not a voice calling out in the darkness.

but it is depressing that you’re the only one who ever gets it.

You guys need to get BFF heart necklaces or something.
Bracelet buddies!
AND

we’re separated by just about as much Continental US as you can be!

I drove out to the far corner in May.

’Twas fun.

But you're coming to AN Day, right?

iglew, are you?

I'm not.

I’m stuck with signs.

Noooooooo!

I thought you were making the journey!

Soon, I will make the permanent journey and then you will all grow quite sick of me.
they haven't tired of me yet

wait, i better ask…

That sounds like a euphemism for dying.

We’re all gonna make the permanent journey!

Robert Frost.
??

don’t know that one

No. I only come to California in December.
That sounded familiar.
I am.

For every movie reference I miss, I make two musical theater and/or Cole Porter references that everyone misses.

not my forte,

but I do get the lit references and some other fairly obscure ones…

Would the Colisseum be filled

if the A’s were in Baltimore?

Maybe if the A's were in Rome.
NO MAHWR PUNS
AN would cease to exist.

Is that what you want??

//head explodes//
Your head a splode
Maybe if a U2 concert was going on
I liked it better before the unbalanced schedule and interleague play.

You got to see every team in the A.L. come to town twice a year.

For out of state a's fans

A’s only come to minnesota once this year, I would prefer they come more often too

it is pretty crazy when you think about it

especially when the best hope for a crowd draw is the slegnA. I guess it’s a raw deal for all the West teams. All I’m saying is that if I had to pick from a purely chance-based perspective, 1/4 is better than 1/5 especially when one other division has two perennial contenders, for better or for worse.

Well,

the money for everyone’s in the Yankees and the Red Sox playing 20 times a year.

There's no doubt that the Yanks vs the Sox

is the biggest thing in baseball but maybe if they spread the games around a bit more other rivals would be born.

I first read that as

“other rivals would be porn” and it made just as much sense.

Well it's almost 1am where I am so I could type anything at this point.
The laws in your city are weird.
You have no idea
QOTM, Nico-snarky-sly edition.
It's 2am here!

Yay!

Ya I need to go to bed

Goodnight and sweet dreams everyone.

i know but it must suck being the Rays right now

They’re a good team, and in the central they probably win the division. But they’re likely to get shut out of the playoffs, which is what people consider winning generally. Who cares if you win 90 games but come in 3rd, right?

The Rays better win in the next couple of years

because once they have to start paying all their players that team is going to sink like a stone in the A.L. East.

...and am now 11-8 in games attended...
that's ticket sales, not actual attendance

but still, lies….

Yeah. I mean I called this morning to ask what time the game was,

and the ticket salesperson replied, “When can you make it?”

+1

Best Funny of the day!

Okay...I was there

And my friend Dr. Pez and I always do an attendance pool, and we have for years and years. We’ve gotten very very good at it. Very very good. We know when they’re lying and we know when the totals are honest.

My guess was 8012. His was 7975. We’re usually very close and one of us is often within a hundred or two when they’re honest.

So there were fewer people than they said, but when all was said and done, it wasn’t by a whole lot.

How on earth do you come up with these numbers?

And how do you know when you’re close when they’re being honest?

We've been doing it for close to thirty years
Obviously...

…we have no idea actually how honest they are. All we can really do is look around the stadium and based on previous experience, come up with numbers that fit what we see through the first three or four innings. We generally do the pool around the fifth inning.

I mean, it’s pretty impossible on a regular basis to hit the number, but when all of us (including our third partner in crime) are WAYYYYYY off, we know something smells fishy. So if we all put down around 9-12,000 and the final total is 18,000, we know they’re lying through their teeth.

Tonight COULD have been accurate, is what I’m saying. If not, the fudge was small. Both Tom and I could easily have underestimated slightly.

And actually, one of us usually is within 500-1000

But we have come within 100-200 several times, and Tom last month got within around 50, which was pretty amazing.

Tom can be ridiculously psychic

Tonight, before the bottom of one inning, he looked at the three batters…Hairston, Cust & Everidge, and said Hairston fly out to center field, Cust strike out looking, Everidge will line the ball toward third. He nailed ’em all, except that Cust struck out swinging. On the other hand, he predicted a Rajai strikeout in the ninth. It comes and goes, I guess.

Investment banker?

That’d be useful.

generous, I'd say

It was ruled a triple, I believe.

I got on to say the same snarky thing!

GMTA!

GO MY TRAINED ANTS
Geren Makes (my) Tummy Angry
I'd say "Geren Manages The A's,"

but I’ve seen scant little evidence, so that can’t be it.

I like walk-off wins

but run-off wins are even more exciting.

You must enjoy close local elections.
I'd say that's your best one tonight Nico
Coups are more exciting.
very very rare. walk off triple almost never happens. they always rule it a double.
+0.824 WPA for Davis' AB. That's the most I've seen I think.
Thank Raji's speed

It is where the player is when the winning run crosses the plate. If the runner is more than half way they can award him the next base. I believe that is how it works but it has been a while since I heard that rule.

so he could have been awarded a inside the park home run IF he was 3 feet behind Ellis when Ellis touched home?
I tell ya, I turned everything off except MLB scoreboard

then waited for the final..“2-0”….
…and waited, and waited…
Wow, too scripted, s’all I can say!
Rajai!!

I had an “instant screenplay” idea. Rogers Hornsby is in heaven, and wants to come back to play MLB, if only as an “alter ego”. Since his nickname was “the Raja” he has to occupy the body of the nearest name to “Raja”…“Rajai”!!

So, out of nowhere, Rajai starts hitting like the Raja. Extra angle…Hornsby was a vociferous racist!

Yay!!!!!!

-Cindi.

I like it.

Racist races around the bases.
Then sees instant playback and goes bug-eyed, slack-jawed.
“Negroes in the bigs??!” says Raja/Rajai.
And, of course, this puts his teammates in stitches.
Oh well, thinks Hornsby, with these wheels I’ll probably hit over .400 again.

Watching the stuff about Munson on MLBN

I knew it was a crash, but I hadn’t known about the details until now. Pretty crazy.

just back from the game

Really boring night til the FUN FUN FUN ending.

I hope you win the wild card but that was In your face Wash.

well, i think its time to give rajai most of the CF ABs the rest of the season

he has been ridiculous for a while now, and has earned the right to be our regular CFer.

+1

At the very least ride the hot streak until it ends.

Ah, but Geren understands that there

is no such thing as a hot streak, just the likelihood that gritty veterans with no physical skills left will suddenly remember how to perform like they did 7-8 years ago.

Geren doesn't reward good play.

You should know that. Our outfield will be the ghost of Matt Holliday, Ryan, and Cust.

With the ghost of Buck stopping by on occasion
With Bob Geren as Ebeneezer Scrooge.
I agree

at least until he cools down. He should be in there every game and Cust should NEVER BE IN RF AGAIN!!!!

This would be confusing to Bob Geren.

“But then how can I get Nomar and Giambi in the lineup at the same time?”

26 outs later ...

I was, at first, pretty pissed that I missed the first 9 innings. Didn’t turn the game on until it was 2-nada in the ninth. So I kicked back with my feet up thinking “The lads were waiting for me to pull up a chair” and, damn, if it wasn’t right! Hooted when Smiling Jack, Mr. Dependable, got on base, then yelled when Tommy Gun slapped one, then ol’ Elly comes through once again … and then it was Rajai time. Hell, you don’t have to be The Great Buck Howard to see what’s coming. Another As walk off win, can’t get enough of ’em. How sweet it is. Thank you, Giants, for sending Davis our way.

Hey obscure movie reference, cool.
RAJAI!!

(testing)

Davis!
I may now become ill.
Hurray! He IS the new Marco!
He kinda is.

Shitty player who had a couple key hits that will be remembered and he will be given way too much credit for.

Yeah, I agree.

Some people kinda like players who provide those key hits.

Makes good memories for people who don’t eat, drink, and sleep this stuff.

Which is fine.

I was in the bleachers in the ALCS when Scutaro hit the double. I went nuts, just like the rest of the stadium. It was awesome. The walkoff against Rivera had me just sitting and staring in disbelief.

However, I can still step back and be realistic. Up until this year, he was a dude with a career .700 OPS who wasn’t quite good enough defensively to be an everyday SS, but good enough at enough spots to be a solid backup who could play just about any IF spot.

Yeah, but as someone versatile defensively,

respected in the clubhouse, and prone to more than his fair share of big hits, doesn’t that make pre-2009 Scutaro one of the better .700 OPS players you could find?

Well... no, not really.

I mean, it’s nice that he was respected in the clubhouse, but Bobby Crosby is one of the best liked players on the team right now. What’s that tell ya?

I mean, I forget what game it was, but when Crosby scored the winning run by completely blowing up the catcher at home plate, nobody really gave a shit. If it had been Scutaro who did it, the entire gamethread and recap would have been a gigantic MarcoFellatio session.

OK maybe "respected in the clubhouse" isn't the right term

for what I mean. “Positive leadership” or “should be respected in the clubhouse” might be closer.

Scutaro never complains, works hard, has addressed the issue of needing to be more patient at the plate, and has turned himself into a better player over time. He may be having a “career year” but he literally leads the league in times reaching base and deserves a heck of a lot of credit for the player he has worked hard to become.

Meanwhile, Crosby hits .220 and proclaims it to be “a joke” that he’s not starting at SS following the Cabrera trade. It may surprise some that Scutaro has excelled, while Crosby has stalled, in recent years, but it certainly hasn’t surprised me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend Crosby.

Merely making the point that, frankly, Crosby and Scutaro were very similar players. 700ish OPS, Crosby was prolly better defensively at SS, Scutaro was more versatile in that he was a capable 2B and could play 3B without looking bad.

The perception, though, was that Scutaro was this little superman who could do anything, but Crosby was a massive failure because he didn’t pick up where Miguel Tejada left off.

I mean, he was a massive failure, but still.

I, for one, loved that play at the plate.

Then again my rose-colored glasses extend to all A’s, right or wrong.

Sure, but notice how nobody ever talks about it?

Had it been Scutaro who did it and not Crosby, it would just be “yet another awesome play” by Super Marco

No argument there.

And I do see your overall point. One giant playoff hit can earn you quite a grace period for mediocrity. Of course, in Scoot’s case, he kinda did it over and over. Eventually that begins to stand out.

Marco is not a shitty player

at least not this year. Here is his hitting line.
.294/.389/.436 with 121 hits, (12 in AL), 32 2B, (T4), 75 runs, (4), 8 HR, 46 RBI

He is also leading the MLB in fielding % for a SS with a .993 %.

I know all of AN would love to have a player with those numbers at SS for the A’s.

Go look at his career numbers please.

You tell me which season looks like the outlier.

You need to take the exchange rate into account, too
Good point.
I'm not sure why, but your wording struck my as particularly funny
Me, that is
It's how I roll.
Guess I picked the wrong day....

….not to watch the A’s game!

Nah, that would be the day we came back from a 13-2 deficit vs. the Twins, and I decided to give up on the game in the sixth inning.
Ya you win Pam

or I guess lose really.

:: Pat on back. ::

Did you just touch my ass?

No, I swear!

I didn't think so.

Try again.

that was me.

I told you that it wasn’t me, Nico.

Me thinks he doth protest too much.
Yet you've been strangely silent until now...
I'll grab your ass next time, don't worry.
Actually, maybe a sandwich..
Really? It had more of MARQUEZ' grip.

Very well then.

he taught me well.

In fact, he’s the one that told me you’d be “into it,” I think he said.

I'm going to go to bed before I think about you guys practicing

{call me}

what have i been missing here?
pie.
a game of grab-ass

but i’ll take some pie

any particular kind? chocolate? cherry? coconut cream?
cherry

with no top (crust)

coming up...
yum. you got some ice cream over there too?
i thought you'd prefer whipped cream?
hey that works too
is Warrant gonna start singing here?
nice obscure band reference

had to actually look that up

Warrant?

How old are you?

26

it appears their heyday was when i was in the 1st grade

Those were dark, dark days.

EVERYTHING is popular music was horrible.

tell me about it

i coundn’t stand to learn cursive. and i hated stonewash jeans.

well, those stonewash were a direct result of

bands like Warrant. And if your mom made you wear a mullet, that was them too.

no

she dated guys with mullets

hawt?

nawt

must have been the rage back in the day
that was Warrant's fault, too.
CHOCOLATE CREME.
Fair enough

I stuck with that one and was rewarded for the effort.

Anyhoo tonight’s tilt was blacked out on mlb.tv, so I’d have had to catch a Ranger b’cast on the boobtube or listen to the radio while gabbin’ with y’all.

And it was Springer that told Rajai that they were going to need him late in the game.
Is that one of those "dogs can feel earthquakes before humans can" phenomenon?

Good dog.

Hi, ZigFan!

I missed you dearly.

I missed you too! Tomorrow....

I look forward to you being on the thread tomorrow.

zf, you and i can drool over saltalmacchia and some others together
Sounds like a plan.

But clearly you’ve spotted the 2 best. And we agree!

Will you make time to talk to me?

That's a silly question.
hamilton didn't look too bad, plus i thought i saw another one in the dugout
you like guys with tatts?
not necessarily but it seems like most guys have them now
well there are tattoos

then there’s josh hamilton. i have no tattoos, but facial hair

Hamiltons not bad. But not really my cup of tea.
i'll have to llok more closely i couldnt really tell

i do like salty tho, meow

Yeah...words are not enough.

yum yum

see you tomorrow!
I think Salty will be joining me tonight.
ok we'll switch off, i'll take hime tomorrow night

I’m free tonight.

I meant in my head, ya following me now?
Gradite a saltare il Saltalamacchia?
Honey, you're setting your sights too young.

Come to the tat-less generation.

A few strategically placed tats can be quite sexy.
that's for sure!
I don't know her exact generation

But not all of “us” have tats… I can’t imagine ever getting one.

Florida re-inks Meyer at $4M per year

Is it bad that when I saw this headline I immediate thought of Dan Meyer, which made me think of Tim Hudson, which make me depressed. But then I saw highlights of our walk-off win tonight and now I can go to sleep happy.

Haha. Baseball talk on a baseball blog.
silly.

Men.

the kid may or may not understand us.

but regardless, he catches on quick.

bedways is rightways, my droogs.

Does that mean you’re going to bed?

me too, good night
Yes. We all are. Last call.
I actually like that movie.

I’m a sick bastard.

it's a classic

no shame

Viddy well, little brother,

viddy well.

Catch This

The scoreboard said that Patterson’s batting average was .187 but his OBP was .172. Um…that’s not possible.

Even I know that.

With Patterson, damn, it just may be.

My head

It asploded.

Actually it is.

Bengie Molina had a lower OBP than AVG earlier in the year.

“If you have more sac flies than your combined total of walks and hit by pitch, your OBP will be lower than your batting average. That’s because sac flies are taken into account for OBP, but not for batting average.”—some dude on yahoo

Didn't Billy Beane do that once?
It is possible

He had a sac fly in there. That reduces the OBP

Ah, thanks

Good. We’re not all insane.

Of course, the day I decide to go to a Padres game instead of kicking at home with MLB.TV...

Wow. When Rajai gets hot, he really gets hot. Didn’t he go through an awesome stretch last year around the same time? A slick defending basepath burner who has the capability to go through stretches? I like it.

Ridiculous

Just…

(sigh)

Ridiculous.

I wish this could have happened Saturday night
Me too

but I’ll take it tonight, even though I wasn’t watching. The A’s need games like this, especially at home, whenever they can get them.

Im glad we jumped on that straight edge loser CJ Wilson….dudes in Minor Threat smoked weed man, your culture is a joke. Currently drinkin a shot of whiskey in honor of our great comeback!

This is not appropriate and has nothing to do with his baseball playing ability.
rawr
Yeah because

all comments on this site are appropriate and about baseball.

Riping someone for their personal choices is not acceptable in my book.

This person might as well have been riping him for his religion or sexual orientation which we all know is not tolerated.

Yeah.

Ripe: Unripe:

hehe..cute.

psst…he’s so ripe btw.

I don't even know what that means.

I was saying hi to ZigFan.

I didn't realize you hadn't done that yet today.
Dude! Translation?

“straight edge loser?” “Minor Threat?” What “culture is a joke?” Huh?

and which whiskey?

It was Jameson.

And….making fun of our division rivals who have a sober closer….not cool? Religion or sexual orientation? Um straight edge is more or less a political decision not to drink, and we live in a free country and I wasnt telling anyone to beat him up, way different to sex/race/religion. Zigfan you maybe need to bite the chill pill and not read so much into a bragging post.

I just LOVE beating the Rangers and therefore dislike all their players, I dislike pretty much every player who plays against Oakland, sorry but Im a fan.

Making fun of anyone who doesn't drink isn't cool.

I know that there are people on this blog that don’t drink. Does that give you the right to make fun of them? No. Does it make someone an ineffective pitcher? No. Make fun of division rivals all you want. Brag all you want. But don’t make it about a personal choice they have made. Calling someone a loser and their culture a joke is rude. Next time why don’t you just say he sucks or he threw some bad pitches. You can be a fan without being a jerk.

Dear Bob Geren-

All year long many people on this board have been calling you an idiot or at least incomptent. I haven’t said much about that topic. However, after watching you hold Rajai Davis- the hottest bat on the team- out of the starting lineup in last nights game, I realize that they are indeed right- you are an idiot. Put that in your little notebook Bobby.

anybody else think Wash over-managed this one a bit?

What happened to Nolan’s idea of extending the pitch counts? Nippert had a one hitter and was kicking our ass. I was surprised when Wash took him out at 90 pitches. Of course the guy he brought (Feliz) in kicked our ass too (first mlb pitch thrown at 99 mph, and he topped 100, and struck out the first four batters he faced). But Wash ended up using six pitchers before he found one we liked.

Hard to say

Nippert’s being used as a spot starter. Another inning, given the number of pitches he was throwing, could well have taken him up to and over 100 pitches, which is a lot for someone not fully stretched out. The A’s were being extremely patient with him last night, and while they may not have had much success, they were not rolling over and playing dead. The team was extremely focused, and it was a very well-played game. In fact you, can almost look at the outcome and see its origins in how well they worked the count against Nippert.

Feliz, on the other hand, was NASTY NASTY NASTY. The most fun I’ve had watching an opposing pitcher since Joel Zumaya when he first came up. This guy’s CHANGE is 91 MPH.

Wash probably did overmanage the 9th, but Wilson is his closer.

Remember Fosse Did Say That....

The gun at the coliseum is about 2-3 MPH faster than other team’s jugs. Hell I’ve seen a 101 MPH pitch before at the coliseum…..But I’m not taking anything away from Feliz – that kid throws HARD!

lost in all this

A terrific performance by Anderson. Getting the double play with the bases loaded turns out to be the play of the night.

I loves me the walkoff win

linky

Great win by a team that looked dead for 90% of the game.

I was one of the 7-8K, (10K please) that sat through out after out for about 2 1/2 hrs. for the thrilling finish. Anderson has, “bradenitus”, (pitch great with no run support) but at least he did not get saddled with an undeserved loss. Big props to Raji for coming in cold in the ninth and still delivering. The big hit of the inning IMO was Tommy’s single that kept the inning alive. I was at all the weekend games and have already got the banner up on the garage wall.

I love the picture in the recap

awesome.

I don't love how the most suitable pics take so long to become available.

;-)

I don't know why Geren

insists on inserting Nomar in every late-game pinch-hit situation. I have yet to see him do anything good in those appearances.

I have never been a big fan of pinch-hitting anyway. You get a guy who is at least two-and-a-half hours from having a bat in his hand during BP and has been sitting on the bench, and you put him in the lineup for a guy who has actually been involved in the game all night. But I digress…

Rajai made it work for him, but Nomar has no business pinch-hitting for anyone when he has 55 career PH appearances and a .234 average in those appearances.

So here we are in 2008

Blanton gone. Harden gone. Haren gone. A bunch of no-names in the field with attendance trickling south of the 10000 mark for almost every game.

SMACK SMACK – I’m awake! Now I realize its actually 2009 and its Holliday gone, Cabrera gone, Giambi injured, GParra on the bench, bunch of no-names in the field with attendance trickling south of the 10000 mark for almost every game.

I thought Beane learned a lesson last year about needing some recognized players to put people in the seats – we’re in the same exact spot this year with the team on the field. I feel so bad for the vets on the team, relegated to the scuzzy confines of the empty coliseum. At least for the kids it con only get better if and when they move on to other teams with more fans and newer facilities. I can imagine Hairston after leaving Petco, walking into the Coliseum clubhouse and saying to himself WTF!

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