Wow.  Go Giants!!!  Over the weekend, Tim Lincecum and Randy Johnson dominated.  Lincecum threw 8 shutout innings with 13 k’s.  Randy Johnson threw 7 innings of 1 hit ball.  Then, tonight Matt Cain held the Padres to 2 runs over 6 innings making his ERA 2.37 on the year so far.  Freakin’ awesome.  Hope Zito is feeling it tomorrow.  I would sure like him to turn things around as well.  

Re: A’s knuckle under,Wakefield flirts with no-no
 

I went to this game. We played our victory dance before we were done.
All we had to do was play our game that we had been playing in the
first two games of the series… but instead the A’s decide to bench 3
main guys that ‘needed rest’ because they played a 12 inning game the
night before. The Red Sox sure didn’t rest… and we got whooped. Since
that day, we’ve lost 4 out of 5 games and the Red Sox have won 5 straight.. So it’s games like those that
establish momentum. Yay. Hopefully, next time we start winning they’ll
look back to this game and think twice before resting. It looked like
the lineup you would put in to mop up the game after a blowout. Pull
that crap on the road, not at home. People pay to come out and see you
guys play.

Sweeney-cf
Cabrera-ss
Giambi-1b
Holliday-lf
Cust-rf
Garciaparra-3b/dh
Chavez-3b/dh
Ellis-2b
Suzuki-c

Alternate 3b/dh daily

Between Garciaparra/Chavez first to get on base is pinch ran for by Buck who replaces Cust in right field–moves Cust to dh

Since we need to steal a run every once in a while, I would replace Davis with Wimberly for speed.

So backups are:

Buck-of
Crosby/Wimberly-if
Powell-c,1b

Crosby plays 3rd with a 3 run lead.

Done

No days off. 

Go A’s!!!

This lineup I believe is brutal to face for an opposing pitcher.  It is also incentive based for our injury prone players.

Sweeney-cf
Cabrera-ss
Giambi-1b
Holliday-lf
Cust-rf
Garciaparra-3b/dh
Chavez-3b/dh
Ellis-2b
Suzuki-c

Alternate 3b/dh daily

Between Garciaparra/Chavez first to get on base is pinch ran for by Buck who replaces Cust in right field–moves Cust to dh

Since we need to steal a run every once in a while, I would replace Davis with Wimberly for speed.

So backups are:

Buck-of
Crosby/Wimberly-if
Powell-c,1b

Crosby plays 3rd with a 3 run lead.

Done

No days off. 

Go A’s!!!

This lineup I believe is brutal to face for an opposing pitcher.  It is also incentive based for our injury prone players.

IMO rough innings often start or are prolonged by errors.  I don’t think it was such a horrible call by Geren to put Crosby in the game, considering this is our first homestand and Crosby hadn’t seen any play time yet at home.  Who would’ve known.  Crosby makes that play any other day.  It just snowballed after that.  Casilla was taking care of business up till then. He needed to get that out, because it was the heart of Seattle’s lineup.  And Zieg…. Seattle just took the momentum and ran with it.  Personally, I wanted to pinch run for Cust in the 8th w/ Davis, so him and Buck could take off on a steal or hit and run w/ Ellis at bat, instead of trying to bunt.  Good game, though.  Nice to see some runs on the board.

I wrote this post after the A’s lost to the Mariners.  It was my response to many disgruntled fans.

Wow.  It is so sad to end such a great night of baseball on that note.  What a great comeback, and an incomparable loss for the Angels and Nick’s family and friends.  Well, from what I saw he pitched like a magician out there.  There were so many runners left on base.  It was frustrating to watch.  He is in our prayers.  I was watching that Giant’s game, too, when Martinez got hit in the head.  OMG… brutal.  I hope and pray that he has a quick recovery from that.  So I guess the message is don’t drink and drive and try to stay off the roads late at night.  Be careful, drunk drivers suck.  They are unpredictable and are like zombies.  That guy woke up from the biggest nightmare of his life and everyone else is paying for it.  

The A’s continue to put out great pitchers every year. I think you have
to credit a lot of that to our pitching coach, Curt Young. There is
your veteran. He’s done a great job up till now and I don’t see that
changing. It’s just great to finally have some bats. We’ve also got a
great hitting coach to go with our new bats. Should be fun to watch….
Go A’s. 

A lot of A’s fans are wanting veteran pitching.  I admit I was too, at first, when Duchsherer got hurt.  But, now that I’ve slept on it a few nights.  It will be a good challenge for the A’s.

Way to go Denorfia!  Walk-off

Game

Go Sean! Nice pinch hit home run. I think our starting pitchers are in
a good position with our new batting lineup and great infield. I know
we’ve been losing, but now is the time for that (spring training). You
know Joe Blanton lost a lot of games in the #1 spot in the rotation
last year. But, I believe it turned him into a really great pitcher,
because he brought his ERA down trying to beat other great pitchers
while our batters weren’t scoring many runs at all. I don’t think these
pitchers face half the battle Joe had to face, besides the fact that
they have less experience. So… given time to prepare for each game by
knowing who they are going to face, they should be able to do real well.

Game