Game 100: A’s at Texas, Game 2
Crisp, Barton, Suzuki, Cust, Kouzmanoff, Ellis, Watson (LF), Davis (RF) and Pennington. Trevor Cahill vs. the ever-so-fondly remembered ex-Athletic Colby Lewis.
Some unfinished business from last night regarding the run the A’s scored, and the play where Coco Crisp was running from first base, nobody covered second and Crisp went on to third. Crisp was credited with a steal, and based on postgame conversations Ian Kinsler was charged with the error allowing Crisp the extra base. With two out in the inning, Kurt Suzuki knocked a hit into center field and Crisp trotted home. I had no idea until listening to Fosse’s rant on the pregame show that the official scorer decided the run was unearned. WTF? Crisp wouldn’t have scored from second base with two out? The bottom line is, Lee was charged with no earned runs, where clearly he should have been charged with one. Yet another reason why “errors” and “earned runs” are such a joke.
… and thereby the cycle continues: the umps for the next Rangers series see Lee gave up 0 ER, and award hm more unearned first-pitch strikes …
Cahill is throwing a lot of nice wormkillerballs through three innings. But…one “unearned” run in 13 innings vs. the Rangers’ pitching staff in Arlington? I never thought I’d see that day, no matter how weak the visitors’ lineup might be.
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Yeah, what the hell, has Texas started using a humidor?
don’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbuntdon’tbunt
Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee has rejected a trade to the Angels…
Angels are really going all out, despite being as far out of the race as we are.
Hey chief administrators (chuckle)! You should add these fine folks to the blogroll:
http://www.baseballoakland.com/
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Done (any Krauthor can do this)
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At FK, we’re all chieves.
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Too many chieves, not enough idiots.
Just when I was sitting here ripping Suzuki for overswinging and trying to hit home runs…KABOOM! It worked that time, at least.
The predatory, merciless A’s bunt-and-run attack has the Rangers D cringing into terrified errors.
Spectacular outing by Cahill. Talk about manning up when it was called for. The guy has just been ridiculously good this season. And he and Brett Anderson are 22.And Gio is pretty damn good. And nobody thought Mazzaro would do as well as he has when Anderson went down.
Take away Anderson’s injury, and I’m guessing every single one of these guys is ahead of where we thought he would be.
With Cahill presumably done after 8 innings at over 110 pitches, I have to think this is one of the best A’s pitching performances ever against the Rangers in The Ballpark in Arlington (opened in 1994 I think). Barry Zito was a Rangers-killer for a few years so he might have something equal. I’ll look through the records later and see what the top few performances are.
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Zito and Harden had back-to-back near no-nos in Arlington in 2005, I think. Two wonderful performances.
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OK, I looked it up and Zito’s was only ok. But Harden had a two-hit shutout with 8 Ks and no walks. IIRC, the only three ball count was when he accidentally went to mouth after coming set (an automatic ball), and he was perfect through seven or eight innings.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200507140.shtml
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If I’m thinking of the same two games, they were at the Coli not TX, and I was there.
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Ah. I totally missed that.
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Those were at the Coliseum, immediately after the All-Star Break that year.
In Arlington, a quick scan is turning up two Game Scores of 80 by the A’s, within a couple days of each other in September of last year (when I wasn’t paying much attention, which would be why I did not remember them):
September 14: Brett Tomko: CG shutout, 5 H, 0 BB, 3 K. As it stands now this was Tomko’s final major league appearance.
September 16: Trevor Cahill(!): 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K.
Tim Hudson put up a Game Score of 79 on 6/26/2003 in a 13-0 A’s win: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 8 K.
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So if I did my math right, Cahill’s game score tonight was 79 with 8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K. That and the three mentioned above are the top 4 A’s game scores in Arlington since 1994.
There are only two more over 70: a 75 by Mark Mulder on 9/27/2002 and a 71 by Zito on 8/25/2006. Zito did put up a lot of 60’s though. At the other end I noticed a game score of 4 by Kevin Appier in 1999.
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Needs moar strikeouts.
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Given the context, this probably stands as the best. We just haven’t won a lot of big games there over the years, let alone with pitching. Had we scored two in regulation last night, we’d be feeling even better right now.
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1.71 ERA in 7 career starts vs. Texas. He’s also dominated slegna: .210/.288/.312 in 6 starts. I think it’s largely a real effect in both cases, since both those teams are stocked with hacky rhhs.
Hawt Breslow action! Awesome.
Woohoo!
Little credit for Geren for not saying, “With Bailey out, Wuertz is my closer,” but instead bringing in Breslow.
You just got struck out by the SMARTEST MAN IN BASEBALL
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Feh, when did we sign Jason Szuminski?
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Free Shawn Haviland!
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You ivy league bastard.
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You ivy league bastard.
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?
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Guilt-by-Cambridge
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Hunh.