Can we hire Billy Beane if the Orcs fire him?
Can we swap them Jack Z and Michael Saunders for BB?
And I like both of those guys.
A reminder: The Orcs will not roll over and play dead vs. us. They won't. They arrive today intending to bite and scratch and slap us about. That is their mindset. Really. They ain't intending to play 'possum for three games.
But a good-old-country Orc-booty kicking tonight might help convince them that resistance is futile. And J-Pax is just the Man with the Golden Arm to do it. Oh, I imagine he will be a bit more excited than normal at pitch #1. His pulse might even rise to 53 or 54. But I suspect he will look like a sharp knife through warm butter at some point this evening. BTW, tonight would be exactly the perfectly-scripted time for our bazillion $ Cano to grab the offense by the scruff of the neck and say, "Follow me boys!"
Paxton AND Cano wielding Orc cleavers would surely jam the fear of their new masters into the Orcs, wouldn't it?
A 2-run jack from our All-Star 3B dude would put the cherry on top of that point, too.
And then the Orcs get to have a Happy Felix Day.
Way back in March we all would have been giddy knowing that this game, this situation, would be here.*
'Ya gotta' believe!
moe
*And I get to miss the game as I have a major-type dinner/event to attend. You guys root for me, will you?
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You might think it was excusable to lose to Chris Sale, or to Randy Johnson, or to Lefty Grove, or to Sydd Finch for that matter. Not so at Athletics Nation :- )
The worst thing about this series is, we could have easily gone 3-1. All of our three losses were one-run contests, with two coming via epic late inning collapses. That’s the worst. If the A’s had just gotten blown out like a normal bad team, this would have been easier to stomach...
No, no, no, the worst thing about this series was the pitching. The pitching was absolutely masterful. Jeff Samardjiza, Sonny Gray, and Scott Kazmir combined to give up 4 runs in 22 IP. The A’s lost all three starts.
... The A’s put together some valiant teAses in the 8th and 9th inning, but yeah, they still managed to get shut out. Because A’s.
There’s just not a lot to say about this game. In another world, this would have been an incredible and entertaining pitchers’ duel, like Anibal Sanchez versus Kazmir earlier this year. In this world, where the A’s have somehow become terrible, it was just a miserable trudge towards the inevitable. At least it was over quickly, ending in just over two hours.
... I think the fire Beane talk is ridiculous, the fire Melvin talk is more ridiculous, and the "blow the team up and trade Donaldson" talk is the most ridiculous of all. ...
Earlier this year, I thought that the 2014 A’s were the single greatest team Beane had ever constructed, including the Moneyball teams. That team is still in there somewhere, and they could break out at any moment. Just keep waiting. And waiting. And waiting…
....
This, of course, was exactly the Mojician Prophecy from a long, long time ago in a blog-o-sphere far, far away. The A's get great starting pitching - and die horribly in a postseason gas fire, anyway. This restores balance to the AL West, young padawan.
Usually after a train wreck, bystanders have the good grace to meander off aimlessly, after they've seen their morbid fill. No such luck for Billy Beane. There are nearly 1,000 reader comments to this funeral dirge! By comparison, Field Gulls gets like 100, 200 comments to NASA-level analysis of chemically-pure sports bliss. The human condition: it's fun to lose and to pretendddddd --- > she's over bored and self assured. I know, I know, a dirty word.
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The night before, the A's blew a 1-0 lead and lost 2-1, prompting an asterisk-laden (?!) meltdown against Bob Melvin for failing to win with 1 run... "baseballgirl", you can be sure, is a pseudonym for that guy who used to write Dodger Blues. Of course, we've edited out the most DodgerBluesy stuff.
...
I'm sure it's not in the sportswriter guidebook to admit to the second bottle of wine, but as an A's fan in 2014, I'm not sure how can you watch this team without assistance. And I may be into a second bottle, but I still think I have a pretty good idea of what is going wrong with this team. I've read a lot of articles in the last few days; bad luck, everything going wrong at the same time, blah blah blah-dee blah. None of us really believe that, am I right?
Nice try, Grant Brisbee. Nice try, Grantland. You can write all the articles about the "unlucky", "everything that could go wrong has for the A's" all day long, and you might fool the average baseball fan, but you'll never fool the A's fans, their writers, their players, or their managers. They know the truth.It's not luck; it's suck, and there isn't a worse team in baseball right now than the Oakland A's, who fell from the can't-miss 2014 World Series champions to the please for the love of everything holy, let the season end right now this very minute without the A's ever setting foot in the playoff race, because (1) no one deserves to be embarrassed like this on national television and (2) I think the human liver was only designed for a playoff week and not a month...
Do you really want to hear about the game? I love you guys so much; I just can't put you through this again. But because I have pledged to recap A's games this season, I'm going to tell you what happened.
The A's started the game 9 up, 9 down, to absolutely no one's surprise, except the Vegas announcers who put the A's at 98% to make the playoffs. Oh to have that bet.
Jeff Samardzija was perfect through seven innings, allowing six hits, two walks, and NO RUNS. Granted, he threw 114 pitches, but I might have stretched him to 140 if it meant I wouldn't ever have to see our bullpen again. I mean, things happened along the way. Josh "Double Play" Donaldson ended the bottom of the fourth with an exciting play to try to get me to forgive him, and the A's picked a runner off; whatever, blah blah. You know what mattered? NOT HITTING AT ALL AND GIVING THE BULLPEN A ONE RUN LEAD.
And like the no-spirit, no-fight, no-punch, no-guts offense that we're fielding day after day, the A's meekly went 1, 2, 3 in the ninth to lose AGAIN. I wish I could have bet my house on that outcome.
The A's play the final game of the series tomorrow at 11:10AM. Too early to drink, and there isn't enough booze in the world. baseballgirl out until Friday night's Seattle game, where the A's find new and fun ways to destroy a season that they spent four months building, and getting their fans to buy into.
Playoffs are a crapshoot, hmmm? Improving the pitching was the way to go, hmmm?
%$&*#$(#*$&(Q*&$#(@*(*@(*#&$*)%&_$(%*)($@(*Y@(*(@*(*#&%*#$%_#)($*#)(*
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The comments sections show much less restraint. We lead off with stuff like this ...
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after tonight I’m done for the year. Wish you all the best, I remain an A’s fan for life, but tonight was the last straw for me.
Have a good winter, may the hot stove league be fascinating, can’t wait for the start of spring training. My best regards, jazmn.
This cannot just be explained away as bad baseball. This reeks of wrong. They’re THROWING this season. The only question is why. Is it rebellion? Orders? Is it everyone? Or just a few in collusion? This is not on the up-and-up.
[other poster] I think the main – only ?? – thing right now preventing the spread of rumours that they’re actually throwing these games is that (almost) every player seems involved…no way could anyone believe this group could coordinate something like that.
...
... and from there, things get really disturbing. I didn't even realize that there were baseball fans in Oakland, much less baseball fans with about five times our own intensity. Better to have loved and lost, than to have lost and been told you are lucky you're not in Tampa Bay, sis'.
Finally, here's their postgame from the first game of the ChiSox series, the one in which the Sox were down to their final strike with nobody on base...
....
I was really truly hoping the A's would find their stroke in a bandbox against a bad team. A team on a 4-game losing streak. Instead they looked like the also-rans playing out the string, while the White Sox made the clutch hits they needed to take the game. The A's are 2-5 in September, after going 12-17 in August.
Join us tomorrow to watch the free fall!
[comment]
you know, they never rely on the one way to lose
every night, it’s a different guy stepping up and saying “I’ll blow this game, you guys.”
Then everyone kind of rallies around him and they lose together. Really the mark of a truly [lousy] team.
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Thursday's loss to Chris Sale was "guaranteed" because the A's were facing a quality left hander. Know of any we could deploy to amplify their pain?
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By the Numbers
94.8 - James Paxton's average fastball velocity in 2014
94.9 - Paxton's avg velo, 2013
93.0 - Clayton Kershaw's average fastball velocity, 2014
Roenis Elias - who has the #3 fastball among qualifying AL lefties, 2014 (Sale, Price)
92.0 - What is Elias' velocity
100.8 MPH - what is Paxton's fastest pitch this year
UP - Where is Paxton's velocity, typically, after he has delivered 100 pitches
LAST GAME - When did Paxton have his best outing
45% - What is the AL-average groundball rate, 2014
55.9% - What is Felix' groundball rate (#3 in league)
50.3% - What is Iwakuma's groundball rate (#7 in league)
55.0% - What is Paxton's groundball rate (#4 in league if he qualified)
NO - could you hit a fair ball over the fence, even if you got it in the air against the above SP's
+1.88 - What is the run value on Paxton's fastball per 100 pitches
+4.17 - What is the run value on his curve per 100 pitches
Oh, about 60% - What is Paxton's chance to lower his 1.87 ERA on Friday
0.5 games behind Oakland - where would the M's be Friday night, after another K-Pax Pinwheel Promenade
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
I have three brothers. They're all Yankee fans. Hey, at least one person in that house had some character! You should hear these guys [gripe] and moan this year about the horror of the Yankee offense, about knowing the game is lost whenever you fall behind because there isn't the slightest chance you'll ever score again. There's something soul sucking about it.
I empathize with all these NYY and Orc fans. I really do. Really.
Neener, neener, neener.
This site has transcended the moniker "blog". Perhaps calling it a "Publication" or a "Journal" might be more fitting with the quality of materal that is produced here. If it were up to me, I'd award SSI the Pulitzer Prize for excellence in sports trash talk.
I can see it now. . .
Announcer:"For accurately predicting failure for the Oakland Athletics when most considered the Athletics to be the finest team in baseball, for denigrating the Athletics in a series of articles through a blended approach questioning the Athletics' psychological makeup, manhood, team composition, hygiene, taxonomy and intelligence, for engaging in undercover investigative reporting into Athletics blogs, and for calling the Athletics "Orcs", which so aptly fits, Seattle Sports Insider is hereby awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for excellence in sports trash talk."
Doc: Thank you so much on behalf of everyone at SSI. You know so much of sports is ephemeral and as fans we tend to overemphasize whatever the box score was the night before. For three months in 2014 Oakland was on top of the world. The Athletics' run differential was the best in baseball and it was widely assumed they'd be winning the World Series. Then, one of our bloggers, known as SabrMatt predicted that the Orcs would fade in the bright lights of September and October. Everyone thought this was a crazy joke at the time, but Matt stuck to his guns, and now we see that he's something truly rare. An analyst who can accurately predict the baseball future with confidence: avant-garde, as it were.
The thing that makes SSI special, is that it uses a blended approach to baseball analysis. We favor an approach that uses scouting, stats, kinetics and psychology in our work and we don't get particularly hung up on any one factor. That is why we saw the fall of the Athletics before it happened. Other sites were so busy Googling over the Athletics' fancy stats that they couldn't see that the Orcs were wussies.
I'd also like to thank Felix Hernandez, Hisashi Iwakuma, James Paxton and Chris Sale for always trashing the Orcs like only they can. These pitchers have been a pleasure to watch and have inspired so many with their filth.
Thank you.
Audience: Thunderous applause!
Announcer: And now a few words from Felix Hernandez who has PWNED the Athletics like no other pitcher in history.
Felix: (Shedding a tear) "Destrozando Oakland es mi gran trabajo. Me ha inspirado siempre estoy pensando en nuevas formas para derrotar a destruir y denigrar a Oakland. Mientras vivo, y mi brazo derecho funciona correctamente, Dios mediante, se aplasta y subyugar a Oakland.
Announcer: (Choked up) Thank you Felix.
Audience goes home crying.
Thank you, Doc...these selections from the Oakland blogs have well and truly nourished my soul - it grows in might and reach with every tear shed in anguish by a pathetic morgol slave or Hiragen drawn to fight for Sauron. I'm like an elf without the evenstar that way, with my fate tied to Middle Earth.
"The thing that makes SSI special, is that it uses a blended approach to baseball analysis."
Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
He reverted to the 12-years-obsolete "blog post" format for yer. As you know, he lives to serve. Getting off the beaten path? Hey, when you least expect it ... expect it.
Where is this chicken dinner? Popeye's, we hope? Hey, if Danny Kelly gets a Seahawk game, we won't turn down a 2-for-1 Popeyes coupon.
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As to predictability, apparently we need a new feature, though. Editor's Choice Enemy Fan Reaction?!
That would (a) increase your hit counts and (b) make this site INFINITELY more fun. Call the feature "Trash Talk" and spend some time allowing us to mock the anguish of our rivals. :D
Reading the blogs of other teams has greatly enhanced my gloating for important wins this year. This sounds like a great new SSI feature.
I know i have seen something historic this season. Of course meltdowns are not unusual. The 64 phillies, the 2011 braves blowing a 10 and half wild lead as of august 26. Meltdowns are part of the game. Absolute, utter, below 70 IQ stupidity should not be. The A's did not meltdown, they committed suicide. The stupidity it took to go from the best team in baseball to missing the playoffs (if you dont win the wild card game you missed the playoffs) will for along time to come be something to marvel at.