I'm excited about Sean Doolittle for a lot of reasons. Once upon a time, my excitement revolved around the 2009 spring training buzz from scouts that Doolittle was major league ready, could hit well in the big leagues, and might be a gold glove caliber 1Bman.
The next thing we heard about Doolittle was that he had blown out his knee, and then we got alternating reports of bad news and no news, and then -- when he had seemingly faded from obscurity -- came the news this past off-season that the A's were converting him to be a pitcher -- where he had also excelled at the University of Virginia.
And so far so great. Topping out, reportedly, at 96-97MPH, single-A hitters were putty in Doolittle's hands, as the lefty put up a line of 10.1 IP, 5 hits, 1 ER, 2 BB, 21 K. Promoted to AA, Doolittle has continued to excel: 10 IP, 2 hits, 1 ER, 4 BB, 17 K. In 21.1 IP, that's 7 hits, 2 ER, 6 BBs, and 38 Ks.
Now to the "undervalued" part...
There isn't much to write about today. The Athletics just dropped two of three to the slegnA at home, and managed to put up only one run and four hits in the last two games combined. The totals for the entire series were 3 runs and 10 hits. So, the offense is still terrible. All the same players are still on the DL. The starting rotation is still young, wild, and developing. The bullpen is still more "hit or miss" than "swing and miss." None of those sound like very appealing things to write about, nor to read about.
This is about the time that things fell apart last season after a promising start; the 2011 A's were also 22-23, and kept things stable long enough to stretch that record to 27-27. Things came to a screeching halt after that, though, as Oakland went on a 10-game losing streak from which they never recovered. That streak began on May 30th, the day that the New York Yankees came to town, with Bartolo Colon throwing a shutout in the opener. Flash forward to 2012, and the Yankees are coming to town again tomorrow, May 25th. Colon will pitch in the series, albeit for the A's. The parallels are not difficult to find, and I don't think that anyone wants to read about them. Happy thoughts!
Therefore, I am going to focus on one of the bright spots of the 2012 Oakland A's: The right field bleachers.
Well, that was disappointing. The A's fall under .500 tonight and lose the series to the Angels because their offense basically....sucks. After getting 1-hit last night, the A's are three-hit tonight, and it's only because one of those hits was a homerun (Seth Smith) did the game even continue past nine innings. Well, that and Jarrod Parker's seven awesome innings, in which he struck out 8 batters. Cook, Fuentes, and Balfour followed with scoreless innings, and Norberto took the loss, as he gave up two in the eleventh.
You aren't going to win a lot of games with an offensive performance like this:
Strikeout, groundout, walk, flyout.
Single, strikeout, groundout, flyout.
Strikeout, single, groundout, pop-up.
Strikeout, walk, flyout, flyout.
Flyout, pop-up, pop-up.
Groundout, homerun, flyout, flyout.
Flyout, groundout, flyout.
Groundout, flyout, groundout.
Groundout, groundout, walk, groundout.
Flyout, groundout, groundout.
Strikeout, strikeout, walk, strikeout.
That's basically the summation. An incredible pitching performance wasted, and another game in the loss column. The A's badly need some bats in their lineup. Until then, we can hope for better things this weekend against the Yankees.
|
New York Yankees Friday, May 25, 2012, 7:05 PM PDT |
||
| Sat 05/26 | 1:05 PM PDT | |
| Sun 05/27 | 1:05 PM PDT | |
BONUS BASEBALL! A's and Angels are tied after nine innings, 1-1, in what is the deciding game of the series. The A's will try to win in extra innings!
This morning finds the A's back at the .500 mark, having absolutely thrown the game last night, not that I'm complaining. When you are throwing out a placeholder as a pitcher in a game against C.J. Wilson, who is notoriously tough on your lineup, why not rest the entire lineup and take the loss? The A's already have the series split, and they go for the series win this afternoon.
In a battle of the creatively spelled first names, Jarrod Parker will take the mound for the A's against Jered Weaver of the Angels as the A's try to take the series. Yoenis Cespedes has not yet returned, and Manny is on the horizon, so the A's have to make do with the following lineup:
LET'S GO OAK-LAND!
As the lineups were posted today, and the A's finally announced Graham Godfrey as today's starter, this outcome was already in the minds of many A's fans. Indeed, the Angels took notice, too, as they decided to go without batting practice. Turns out, while they pounded out 10 hits tonight, they probably didn't even need to swing the bat. Godfrey was more than happy to issue free passes at will, and when he wasn't doing that, they got their BP in during the game. Albert Pujols connected for his 13th hit against the A's this year, this time of the 4-base variety. They scored 4 runs off of Godfrey, who had a horrible outing: out of 54 pitches, he managed only 23 strikes. Travis Blackley came in to relieve him, pitching 3.2 innings of solid relief. Jim Miller and Jerry Blevins completed the garbage time assignments, closing out the game to save Ryan Cook et al for tomorrow.
Well this one hasn't been too much fun so.... RALLY THREAD!
The Athletics take on the Angels tonight at the Coliseum where they will welcome our vilest of vile opponents: C.J. Wilson. My love lost for C.J. knows no bounds and hopefully all of you feel the same way. Wilson of course criticized us Oakland A's fans! He criticized our mound! He criticized our players! He criticized the many attorneys around America working counts! Tonight it is our time to strike back...
To do so Bob Melvin assembled the best lineup he could from the Pacific Coast All Star Team. Yup, we have a dud of a lineup out there. No Josh Reddick. No Jemile Weeks. And then on top of that the order is all weird. Josh Donaldson hitting 5th? Pennington 6th? Rosales 7th? I can't say I fully understand the methodology here and hope it is just routine rest for our better players.
On the mound for the A's is another recent River Cat, call up Graham Godfrey who looks to put one in the win column for the first time in his fourth start of the season. Game starts at 7:05... LETS GO SAC-RA-MEN-TO!!!
