2006 Oakland A's Thread

[Green & Gold Heart]

There is no excuse for not being able to hit the crap out of this guy tonight. Let's get the rookie some run support.

[mikev]

Or, not.

BTW, nice catch on the Bradley throw, Kendall. Melhuse would have had it.

[Green & Gold Heart]

Well, at least they scored. It didn't involve hitting the ball though.

[JDOldSchool]

Originally Posted by mikev

Or, not.

BTW, nice catch on the Bradley throw, Kendall. Melhuse would have had it.

You're on drugs if you think Melhuse is a better defensive catcher than Kendall is. I'm typing this right as Kendall ended the rally with his strike out: Adam Melhuse is NOT a better player. He can't even get his OBP above .300. He's a decent backup and his versatility makes him worth having around, but he is in no way more valuable than Kendall and there's not a chance in hell he should be starting over him.

[Green & Gold Heart]

WTG, Jason Windsor! First MLB strikeout!

[mikev]

I'm glad Macha chose to not use (righty specialist) Calero against Mora and Tejada in the 7th. Sarloos was clearly on his game, spotting hit pitches, and not leaving anything up in the zone. [/sarcasm]

[Green & Gold Heart]

Bobby Crosby sucks.

[Green & Gold Heart]

That was lame.

[mirrf]

That was one of the worst played games I've seen in a while.

[mikev]

Originally Posted by mirrf

That was one of the worst managed games I've seen in a while.

That too.

[mirrf]

Isn't *every* A's game the worst managed game you've seen in a while?

[Green & Gold Heart]

Well it wasn't Ken Macha's fault that Eric Chavez and Bobby Crosby both looked like **** last night.

[mikev]

Originally Posted by Green & Gold Heart

Well it wasn't Ken Macha's fault that Eric Chavez and Bobby Crosby both looked like **** last night.

Well, Macha *did* put Chavez in the lineup... and even if Chavez had "talked him into it," I still call BS. The manager's JOB is to write the lineup. He is IN CHARGE of the players, and needs to tell them when they are or aren't playing. This pisses me off to no end when you always hear that Macha doesn't want to sit Kendall because he'll get upset. SO WHAT! If you want to play, how about getting your OPS out of the mid .600s, OK guy? Seriously, it makes me sick that Kendall "refuses" to be taken out of the lineup. I'm pretty sure he's not sitting there with a knife to Macha's throat while the lineup cards is being filled out.

However, it was clearly Macha's fault that Sarloos was left in to pitch a second inning, especially when the 7th SHOULD be Calero/Duke territory. Calero didn't even START to warm up until Sarloos was giving up the (eventual) game winning runs. That's awesome.

Calero should have been warming up as the inning was getting underway. The first two batters Sarloos faced hit absolute lasers off him. One of them happened to be directly at Chavez, though, so Macha must have thought "Hey, Loos is crusing! One pitch out! You go Kirk!"

Either that, or he was halfway asleep and in a Juicyfruit-induced coma.

[mikev]

Dola,

The BIGGEST problem with Cacha "letting" Chavez play last night? He just took away 7 days of retroactive DL-ability. Not that it matters, Chavy should be put on the 15 day RIGHT NOW, Doug Clark should be DFA'd, and Bocachica should be called up.

Somebody get me Beane's number.

[mikev]

J. Kendall
M. Kotsay
M. Bradley
E. Chavez
F. Thomas
N. Swisher
J. Payton
B. Crosby
M. Ellis

That's the rumored lineup. Good job again (seriously) by Macha if this is the case.

[Green & Gold Heart]

Except for Chavez hitting 4th. I expect to see more striking out and sucking from him tonight.*

(*If I can ever log in to mlb.tv. "Your account has been logged in too many times. Please try again later." WTF?)

[JDOldSchool]

Originally Posted by mikev

J. Kendall
M. Kotsay
M. Bradley
E. Chavez
F. Thomas
N. Swisher
J. Payton
B. Crosby
M. Ellis

That's the rumored lineup. Good job again (seriously) by Macha if this is the case.

Kendall is 3 for 18 and Kotsay 4 for 30 against Ortiz lifetime. My backside this is a good lineup. Frank Thomas should not be batting 5th, he should be batting third. I don't care how many times Swisher strikes out, he's still getting on base more than anybody on the team and should be batting second. I'd like to see Bradley leading off tonight, actually. Swisher second, Thomas third and then after that who cares?

Sure, that lineup scored 3 runs early, but that's with the 7-9 guys doing the damage.

[Green & Gold Heart]

Hey, the Tom Hanks crew is at the Colorado/Pittsburgh game today.

[JDOldSchool]

Originally Posted by Green & Gold Heart

Hey, the Tom Hanks crew is at the Colorado/Pittsburgh game today.

Wouldn't going to New York have made more sense logistically?

[mikev]

Originally Posted by JDOldSchool

Kendall is 3 for 18 and Kotsay 4 for 30 against Ortiz lifetime. My backside this is a good lineup. Frank Thomas should not be batting 5th, he should be batting third. I don't care how many times Swisher strikes out, he's still getting on base more than anybody on the team and should be batting second. I'd like to see Bradley leading off tonight, actually. Swisher second, Thomas third and then after that who cares?

Sure, that lineup scored 3 runs early, but that's with the 7-9 guys doing the damage.

Lifetime numbers are fairly insignifigant in this case since Ortiz is a shadow of himself now (7.88 ERA, 2.25 WHIP) and the ABs that Kendall and Kotsay had against him were several years ago in the NL.

Kotsay is riding a 7 game hit streak, was player of the week, he's pretty much on fire right now, and Bradley is 7 for 11 since coming back. Chavez NEEDS Thomas behind him, but what he really needs is to not play right now and get healthy (see my posts above re: Macha). Crosby needed to be moved down in the order, and apparently its worked tonight (albeit against Ortiz' ghost). Ellis just needs to find his swing IMO until the leadoff spot is his again. We really need the 2005 2nd half Ellis.