Comments on: And That Happened: Tuesday's Scores and Highlights

By: APBA Guy

APBA Guy — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:38:36 +0000

Reading the boxscores doesn’t give the full flavor of the game. For this I am grateful because otherwise my obsessive viewing of the Beloved A’s would seem…obsessive.
For instance, Doug Fister (you do want to spell it “Phister”, don’t you?) from not so far Merced, CA, dazzled the real A’s with an assortment of Jamie Moyer junk-ballery, but from the right side. His “fastball” topped out at 89, but unlike the tendency of pitchers today, he located it well and as a result the A’s were hacking like contestants in an episode of Axmen.
Brett Anderson did not have his good stuff, but still held the Mariners scoreless through 6 by overwhelming them with his reputation. “You know the slider is coming on two strikes, but you are compelled to swing.” You’d think the town that gave us Randy Johnson would have seen this already and learned something from it. Evidently not.
Brad Ziegler, he of the long scoreless IP streak two years ago, did his best to throw one past Kurt Suzuki after Figgins had doubled in the 7th. Ziegler threw a frisbee far to Kurt’s right. Kurt dived from his crouch horizontally and speared the ball with his glove hand, back to the field. He then semi-cartwheeled his landing, ending on his feet facing third. Figgins had figured, naturally, that the pitch was bound for the backstop and headed for third himself. Imagine his surprise as he arrived 5 feet from the bag to find Kouzmanoff waiting with the perfect throw from Kurt, touching Figgins leg as Figgins ran into the tag, too amazed by the acrobatics of Kurt Suzuki to even slide.
No doubt today that play is being rerun in a dark room deep in the bowels of Fenway Park, where men of evil plot to destroy the A’s carefully crafted chemistry.

By: Charles Gates

Charles Gates — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:59:40 +0000

‘Baseballery’ didnt give away the sarcasm?

By: BC

BC — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:42:01 +0000

The “butcher boy” play has been in baseball since the dawn of time. Part of the game and not dirty whatsoever.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:35:01 +0000

RE: John Maine
But Craig… This is true of all non-Johan Mets starters. Wait, no, that’s not fair to long men. Lots of them are better than Ollie.
Oh how I wish that weren’t true. Mets fans, I vicariously feel your pain.
Captcha:
goobers last
… ew?

By: (Not That) Tom

(Not That) Tom — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:10:25 +0000

Milton Bradley is a bad, bad man. Everybody knows it’s bad form to swing at a ball after showing bunt. He could have gotten the third baseman killed!
He should be suspended for such a wanton act of baseballery.

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:52:29 +0000

Well, what do you expect with two marquee teams playing in the rain – District Nine? Twenty five hundred, if there really were that many there, is a pretty good turnout – especially here in Macondo on what probably had to be a sacred feast day for someone or other in the Vodoun pantheon.
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And speaking of the Loas, what would you expect from the Feesh bullpen with Papa LaBas himself chanting away in the main office while counting his profits and sticking pins in the payroll? Come to think of it, the current Feesh shibboleth – “Serious Fun! Get Into It!” (as if a city mired in a tourist slump and a condo bubble bust known locally as the Beeg Boom would respond to a lure like “serious”) – just ain’t gonna work. So in the continued Vodoun spirit, maybe High Houngan Scrooge McLoria should consider a new theme for the season, something that really plays on the idea of fan enthusiasm – you know, like, “We want to hear you scream!”
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It was another night when Fat Freddy decided to emulate the Battle of Port Arthur with his bullpen and use it upside-down pitching his closer in a tie on a night when even Renyel Pinto got away with a couple of scoreless innings and then letting his scrubeenies, Jose Veras and Dan Meyer, cough up four runs (in addition to the usual unearned run total – 3 this time – as Jorge Cantu continues to lead with his bat and dazzle with his glove and arm at third). Even a sick catch by Chris Coghlan, catching a fly ball over his head in a dive and then skidding across the track into the wall, couldn’t rev this team up to push a measeley run across with three sudden death innings to work with. Coghlan, meanwhile, is in the throes of a classic sophomore slump resembling the Matanuska following the 1964 Anchorage earthquake. In his youthful anxiety to do good he has been snapping at every pitch anywhere between first and home like a junkyard dog in pinstripes and is now batting so far below the Mendoza line that if he had a four hit game he’d be carried off the field with the bends. I’ll take odds on how long it takes Fat Freddi to figure out that this is not what you want from a leadoff hitter. Or maybe he just figures that Andrew Miller needs another kid with a confidence level measurable in fathoms to talk to.
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Good News: the factory prototype of the Heyward Child, Cameron Maybin, really seems to be finding his footing at last. He made a couple of competent grabs in the outfield last night and he is becoming steadily more pitch-selective. Apparently he took the Hammer’s advice the other day and is clearly not trying to jack everything, and he’s starting to pull his average inexorably towards .300-plus. And of course Hanley Ramirez is batting around .400, although his power stats haven’t begun to move up yet.