The following is an age-old tale of forbidden love, with the same lamentable ending as all the others.

* * *

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

--John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

I wish I could believe Keats was right. I wish that simple formula--Find The Beautiful, Be A Winner--were actually true. But look at the world. The truth is, sometimes The Ugly kicks ass. Microsoft. MySpace. George Steinbrenner. Barry Bonds.

* * *

Confession: I am in love with B.J. Upton.

It was love at first sight. I have yet to lay eyes on Upton on TV (for who watches the Devil Rays on TV?), but here is what I said when I first laid eyes on him in person last August:

..even though Loaiza had Upton befuddled most of the afternoon, striking him out three times, I kinda fell in love with Upton anyway. His swing is so quick and smooth, it's quite a lovely thing to behold. I think he has the most aesthetically pleasing swing I've seen in years.

I saw that swing again yesterday at the Oakland Coliseum. My feelings intensified. I love, love, love B.J. Upton's swing. I think could watch it for days and nights on end. I have not heard anyone else say such a thing about him, so perhaps it doesn't show up on TV, or perhaps it's just the simple blindness of human love and infatuation, but I find his swing to be unbelievably, intensely captivating.

I am a diehard A's fan. I am not supposed to fall in love with a member of a rival clan. This is heresy; it can only lead to pain and suffering. But who can help who they fall in love with? I am Tristan, having drunk the potion to fall in love with the already betrothed Isolde. I am Romeo, in love with Juliet, the daughter of my family's most bitter enemy. B.J. Upton does not play for my team, but I find his swing to be the most beautiful swing I have ever seen.

'Tis but your team that is my enemy;
You are yourself, though, not a Devil Ray.
What's a Devil Ray? It has no hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, join some other team!
What's in a team? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So B.J. would, were he not Devil Ray called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. O, B.J., doff your team,
And for that team which is no part of you
Take all myself.

And perhaps all is well when the object of my affection fails to do any damage against my own clan, but oh, the bittersweet pain when this beautiful swing turns into a three-run home run that sends my own team to defeat:

* * *

B.J. Upton is short and lean and graceful, in a time when baseball players are, in increasing numbers, tall and bulky and powerful. How can Upton compete against men who are seemingly twice his size? Can grace and beauty defeat ugly, brute strength?

Perhaps that's why I've fallen in love with Upton; I want so badly to believe that it can. Evolution has seen fit to wire us, for some reason, to seek out beauty, to prefer it over ugliness. Evolution has the wisdom of millenia behind it; it won't be fooled by sample size. Perhaps ugly only wins in the short term, because that's how ugly fights.

What if Keats was right? What if beauty does win in the end, and that's all you need to know?

Perhaps all these ugly, bulked-up-on-chemicals baseball stars will get their comeuppance in the end. The dealers will squeal, the truth will out, the names will be stained with the word of their sins, and their once-powerful glory will crumble like old, stone ruins in the desert:

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

--P.B. Shelley, Ozymandias of Egypt

I don't want to know that a lean young man with a short, sweet stroke needs to turn into a monster to survive. I'd rather live in ignorance, to suffer the pains of defeat and betrayal and disappointment, if living with knowledge means living without beauty. I choose to believe that in the long run, only the beautiful will reveal itself to be true, and only the beautiful will be remembered as truth. Beauty is not a large monument proclaiming its own greatness. Beauty is a grain of sand, blowing in the wind.

Blah blah blah bad offense. Blah blah blah lifeless effort. Blah blah blah doomed.

And that pretty much sums it up. The only thing worse than watching the broadcast of the A's go through the motions against the Devil Rays? Seeing it in person. Guess how I wound up spending my Friday evening?

Game 23: Devil Rays 4, A's 1

Your Pitchers of Record: WP -- J. Shields (2-0) LP -- C. Gaudin (1-1) S -- Reyes (8)

Went Deep: Crosby (2)

Your Room Temperature Corona Star of the Game: It's hard at this point to tell when a pitcher manages to shut down the A's because he's in top form or because he has the advantage of... well... facing the A's. We'll give James Shields the benefit of the doubt, considering he notched 12 strikeouts in his last start against an Indians team that hits the ball much better than this Oakland outfit. Eight innings of four-hit, nine-strikeout pitching is impressive no matter who you're facing.

The Turning Point: I could point out the bottom of the first, where the A's had runners at the corners with one out, thanks to a blooper-reel-worthy throw by Dioner Navarro, and still came away without a run. But I have hammered on the A's offense too much lately -- certainly more than the A's have hammered opposing pitchers.

So let's look at a pitching staff miscue -- that'd be in the third inning, when the Devil Rays failed to record a hit, and yet, still plated two runners. (Thanks to a pair of Chad Gaudin walks, a double-steal, a run-scoring ground-out to third, and a passed ball.) That put the score at 4-1 Tampa, where it would stay the rest of the evening.

Continue reading...

Marcus McBeth is one of the players named later in the trade with Cincinnati for the injured Chris Denorfia. McBeth is a converted outfielder with a rocket arm, who has shot up through the system quickly since his conversion to the mound. He reportedly has a killer changeup to go with his hard heat. So Billy Beane is now trading young players with upside for injured minor leaguers who are about to start the decline phase of their careers? Even straight up, I don't get this one. And there's still one more player to be named.

If I have to make up an explanation, it would go like this:

• The A's are organizationally thin in center field. Bradley and Kotsay are injury-prone. Bradley will be a free agent next year, Kotsay the year after that. The A's first attempt to fill this hole, Charles Thomas, was a big flop. The A's best CF prospects, Javier Herrera and Jermaine Mitchell, are currently still in single-A.
   
• The A's are not confident about re-signing Bradley, nor about Kotsay's ability to return from his back surgery.
   
• Denorfia has some awesome numbers in the A's super-duper-secret defensive measuring system.
   
• The A's have depth with minor league relievers, so they could spare one.

That's reasonable, I suppose, but I still don't like it.

As noted by eagle-eyed reader For The Turnstiles in the comments section of this post, Billy Beane has headed our calls for action and acquired a player via trade. And what a trade!

The Oakland A's today acquired outfielder Chris Denorfia from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for two players to be named later and cash considerations. Denorfia was on the Reds 60-day Disabled List and will be moved to the A's 60-day DL.

Denorfia adds important depth to our disabled list.

Let's just combine both games against the Mariners into one big ol' Game Summary. In essence the Wednesday and Thursday contests were the same game anyhow -- solid performances by all the starters, with Seattle getting key hits and the A's getting... well, very few hits, let alone key ones. At least at an hour and 47 minutes, Wednesday's game had the advantage of getting to the undesirable result much quicker.

One disastrous writeup for two disastrous games, coming up, after the jump...

Continue reading...

The A's just got mini-swept by the Mariners. Now the Tampa Bay Devil Rays come to town. I thought I'd just cut and paste a few things. Please to enjoy.

Sure, the A's might improve on their current .217 average with RISP and 2 outs. I keep waiting for our luck to even out. But I've been waiting over two years now, and the A's keep regressing to Detroit instead of to the mean.

So far this year, it looks like the same old stuff as the last two years. How much longer should I hold onto my faith in regression to the mean before I give up and declare this a flaw in the design? [1]

...and...

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when you're watching your team play against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and you suddenly realize that the Rays might have the better team. That probably wouldn't be the case if the A's were healthy. But here we are.

Let's look at some rankings:
Offense, OPS: A's 14th, Rays 7th.
...

The A's pitch better, the Rays hit better. Not much news there. [2]

...and then...

The good news is that the A's finished April just a half game out of first place in the AL West. In fact, it's more than just good news, it's miraculous news. With the exception of Nick Swisher and Eric Chavez, it has seemed like a Murphy's Law kind of month for the A's.

So far, the A's have suffered injuries to Rich Harden, Esteban Loaiza, Huston Street, Justin Duchscherer, Jay Witasick, Bobby Crosby and Milton Bradley. And beyond that, all but a handful of players have been performing below (and in many cases, far below) expectations.

...

If the A's at least avoid any long losing streaks until Harden comes back, I will be happy. Just hang around in the race, until the pieces are in place, and things start to click. The A's don't need miracles to win the division. They just need good health, and performances that at least somewhat resemble expectations. [3]

Bibliography:
[1] Ken Arneson, April 21, 2004
[2] Ken Arneson, May 24, 2005
[3] Ken Arneson, April 30, 2006

If I were Adam Melhuse, I'd be doing more than "grumbling" about being sent to the minors. I'd be pulling a full-fledged Brad Halsey, or worse.

I suppose if you're like Melhuse, and you don't make a major league roster until you're 28 years old, you're grateful for any opportunity to spend time on a 25-man roster, even if you're stuck behind an iron man catcher like Jason Kendall. But Melhuse has talent, and I find it terribly unfair that he's hardly had any chance to see what he can do with it. He's only had one year (2004) where he was given over 200 at-bats; he put up an OPS of .772. For a catcher, that's damn good. Production like that could get you a starting job on probably 10 teams in any given year. The following year, however, Kendall shows up, and ever since, Melhuse has only gotten a handful of at-bats a week. It's hard to keep your timing with that kind of playing time. Maybe Melhuse is washed up now at age 35, but how could anyone tell?

There's something terribly wrong with a system that allows a team to send a 35-year-old man to the minor leagues, without giving him any choice about how to manage his career. The MLBPA needs to do something about this in their next collective bargaining agreement; all minor league options should expire once a player hits a certain age, say 31 or 32. Every player should get at least one shot during his peak free-agent years to avoid falling into the Hall of Could Have Been by mere circumstance.

There are plenty of teams (the Yankees come to mind) that could use a solid backup catcher like Adam Melhuse. He deserves a chance to play, and a chance to cash in on his talent, and the opportunity to find a team willing to give him that chance. He deserves to be a free agent.

Free Adam Melhuse!

So I had this whole big Broadway production number planned about the history of the screwball in honor of surprise A's starter Dallas Braden, only to discover via the Chronicle's game report that the rookie hardly even used the screwgie. So now what I'm supposed to write about? Nick Swisher's hamstring? I'll take a pass, thanks.

So instead, here's an up-close-and-personal look at the pitch Dallas Braden didn't throw all that much of. I'll be damned if I unearthed my copy of The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers for nothing.

Rob Neyer concludes his chapter on the screwball by writing, "when you see one, treasure the moment. Because it may be your last." A's fans have actually seen a bit of the screwball in recent years -- before Braden came along, Jim Mecir relied on the pitch, though I'm not sure Jim Mecir on the mound is a moment that any A's fan should be expected to treasure.

I also happened to live in Los Angeles during the height of Fernandomania. I was but a lad at the time, though I remember two things about Fernando Valenzuela's screwball: 1) He learned it from Bobby Castillo, which is undoubtedly Castillo's greatest accomplishment in baseball; and 2) Every time Valenzuela threw the screwgie, my father predicted dire arm troubles were in his future.

Turned out my old man was right. Indeed in his Guide to Pitchers chapter, Neyer lists some of the great screwball specialists in history, noting that really only Mike Cuellar pitched effectively into his late thirties. Christy Mathewson, Carl Hubbell, Fernando -- all of them kept pitching to one degree or another, but they all became fairly average pitchers as they hit their early- to mid-30s.

It is not so hard to figure out why screwball pitchers don't enjoy Satchel Paige-like bouts of longevity, according to Neyer:

If you don't believe that throwing a screwball puts a strain on your arm, I want you to conduct a little experiment (don't worry, it'll take just a few seconds and doesn't involve a Bunsen burner).

First raise your right arm, with your elbow pointing toward third base (work with me here) and your hand pointing straight up.

Now, quickly bring your hand forward and downward, and just as your arm is nearly straight, twist your wrist violently clockwise, so that your palm winds up facing skyward and your thumb is pointing toward third base.

Not bad, huh? That was a curveball.

Now, start over and do the same thing... except instead of twisting your wrist clockwise, twist it counter-clockwise.

Hurts a little, doesn't it? That's a screwball.

So that's one reason you don't see that pitch much these days -- it hurts like hell over time and there are other pitches (the split-finger fastball, its cousin the forkball, and the circle change) that more or less do the same thing with the added benefit of not crippling you. Also, Neyer points out, it's not the easiest pitch in the world to learn.

Now how Dallas Braden picked up the pitch given all these obstacles, I do not know. But I'm hoping those details emerge the longer he sticks with the club. I also hope to see just how big a part of his repertoire the screwball actually is -- might be worth a trip out to the Coliseum Sunday to see for myself.

In the meantime, as Ryan noted in February, the A's are amassing themselves quite the impressive army of gimmick pitches -- screwball-tossing Dallas Braden, side-arming Jay Marshall, and Kaz Tadano and his amazing, stupefying eephus pitch. Quick -- someone teach Chad Gaudin to throw the hesitation pitch or Justin Duchscherer to toss one of them Bugs Bunny one-two-three-strikes-yer-out slowballs, and we'll be assured of having the most colorful pitching staff in the league, if nothing else.

Continue reading...

We had some guests over on Sunday for something my wife has dubbed Pie Fight Club. The idea is that we grab four similar pies -- strawberry, in this particular case -- from pie shops and diners from around the area, remove them from their boxes, and hold a blind tasting to determine whose pie reigns supreme. This is a very serious business, I might add, with millions of dollars in pie sales and the reputations of eateries across the Bay Area at stake.

Anyhow, the event was in full swing as the A's went about blowing Sunday's game to the Rangers. And, considering the fact that we had company, I think I held my emotions in check, except maybe for the moment when Nick Swisher struck out looking for the second out of the ninth, and I interrupted the conversations going on around me by shouting out, "Damnit, Nick, you've got to swing the [especially filthy expletive deleted] bat." You can imagine this was quite a shocking thing to hear for one of our guests, also named Nick, who is a lovely fellow who would never, ever strike out with the bat on his shoulder and the tying run in scoring position. I apologized profusely to Nick, explaining that my outburst was not aimed at him, but rather an entirely different Nick playing a game thousands of miles away from my living room, making him unable to hear me, even though my voice carries very well.

So that was kind of awkward, yeah.

But otherwise, Pie Fight Club was a success, with the strawberry pie from Nation's Giant Hamburgers taking top honors, just ahead of Marie Calendar's offering. (You can read the blow-by-blow account here.)

Nation's, as you may or may not know, is a radio sponsor of the A's. Indeed, in an especially appropriate twist, I heard a Nation's commercial on my way to the local Nation's to pick up what turned out to be the winning pie. Which is when I discovered that not only has Bob Geren replaced Ken Macha in the A's dugout, he's also usurped the silver-haired one's role as the Nation's spokesman. In fact the commercial I heard -- not the one linked to in the preceding sentence -- featured the exact same copy Ken Macha used to read in his clipped Western Pennsylvania staccato. ("People say I have a great rotation, but it's nothing like the rotation they've got at Nation's... and just when you think you've got them figured out, they throw you a curve.")

To me, this the cruelest twist of all to Macha's ouster. Yes, you can assail his bizarre pitching moves or his passivity on the bench or his frosty relationships with players. But there is one thing about Ken Macha's managerial career in Oakland that is beyond dispute -- he loved those Nation's hamburgers. In that one ad where he runs through the signs -- "A pat on the stomach means it's time to head to Nation's!" -- you could tell that this was not merely an act. In fact, I bet the A's did have a sign for a Nation's hamburger run when Ken Macha was manager, which would explain all those botched bunts.

It seems cruel to take that away from him now, just because he's not the A's manager. Surely some arrangement could have been made -- Geren gets the manager's gig, but Macha gets to keep the Nation's spots. Yes, you'd have to rewrite the ad copy somewhat ("Hi, I'm Ken Macha. When I'm not cursing Billy Beane's name, I'm biting into a delicious Nation's pie. The only taste sweeter will be my eventual revenge.") but I have confidence that the copywriters can rise to the challenge.

And I hope on the next A's broadcast I don't hear Bob Geren touting the merits of Comcast-on-Demand or Fitzpatrick Hummer -- otherwise, it will just be too humiliating for poor Macha if Geren winds up with every one of his old sponsorships.

And speaking of that Hummer ad... it's my considered opinion that particular radio spot was what fractured the relationship between the former A's manager and Mark Kotsay, who was among the most vocal critics of Macha's interpersonal skills. If you remember, the ad features Macha and Kotsay extolling the virtues of Fitzpatrick Hummer -- Macha notes that he was allowed to drive on the test track, which Kotsay reacts to with a mixture of incredulity and disdain. "They let you drive on the test track, Skip?"

I imagine that the director yelled cut, and, as everyone was congratulating each other on a job well done, Macha turned to his outfielder and demanded, "What the hell was that about?"

"What do you mean, Skip?"

"That business about me being allowed to drive on the test track. How dare you."

"Look, Skip, I'm just reading the script here..."

"You're dead to me, Kotsay!"

And, of course, the situation just deteriorated from there.

So my message to A's advertisers is this -- promote your product however you want, but please stop sowing discord among A's players and management. I sure don't want to be listening to a game in the next few days when an ad for Kaiser Permanente comes on featuring Brad Halsey and Bill Beane. "If you'd only have sent me here in early March, I'd be pitching for the big club by now," Halsey would say. "I sure hope Kaiser has facilities in Durham," Beane would retort. "Because I've just traded you to the Devil Rays." That would be too, too awkward for everyone.

Woefully, woefully behind on the game summaries. Part of the problem is, like many of the A's, I've suffered an injury -- a recurrence of a foot problem I've been battling since November. I should be able to avoid any time on the DL, but I hear Ken might call up the Game Summary writer from Midland in a few days.

Also, I've taken some time off to finish my first one-act play. I call it "The April 23rd Game Between Oakland and Baltimore," and I share it now with you. Enjoy.

Dramatis personae
---
Baltimore, a Major League Baseball team
Oakland, another Major League Baseball team

The curtain rises on a baseball field in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Baltimore enters from stage right. Oakland enters from stage left.

Baltimore: Greetings, good sir. I bid you welcome to my baseball stadium.

Oakland: Thank you, hospitable stranger. It is indeed a lovely ballfield.

Baltimore: You honor me, sir. As a token of my appreciation, please accept this five-run lead on behalf of my shaky starting pitcher.

Oakland: That's awfully kind of you. But really, I didn't bring anything for you...

Baltimore: No matter, sir. You are a guest here.

Oakland: But still, I feel quite the ill-mannered baboon. I know! Here's a run for you! And another! And two more still!

Baltimore: Sir, you embarrass me! I insist that you have this insurance run. Surely, the game is decided, so this extra run I give you is meaningless.

Oakland: Not so, my fine fellow. Not if I give you this fifth run and allow you back into the game with this six...

Baltimore: Halt, scoundrel! You try my patience. I will not accept your sixth run, even if it means running my way out of the inning and calling for an inexplicably ill-timed bunt.

Oakland: If you insist. I fear that I have offended you. I will be on my way. Good day to you.

Baltimore: And good day to you.

Oakland exits, stage left.

Baltimore: Aw, crap.

And scene.

Game 19: A's 6, Orioles 5

Your Pitchers of Record: WP -- D. Haren (2-2) LP -- E. Bedard (3-2) S -- H. Street (5)

Went Deep: Swisher 2 (3), Roberts (1), Huff (2)

Your Eco Domani Chianti Star of the Game: Nick Swisher, for his two home runs, equally important to the outcome and from opposite sides of the plate.

The Turning Point: If you were watching the videotape footage of the final inning when Brian Roberts singled off Huston Street with runners on second and third and one out, you were treated to a curious sight -- Corey Patterson, the runner on second, running counter-clockwise on the bases. As the ball trickled past Street and into center, Patterson can clearly be seen darting back to second instead of bolting toward third. This hesitation clearly cost Baltimore the tying run -- Patterson scores easily if he doesn't hesitate -- and ultimately the game. And if there was a reason for it, other than good old fashioned brain-lock, I don't know what it could be. Even if Bobby Crosby manages to field the ball, he's running away from third and would probably try for the out at first -- Patterson would be safe at third easily. I hope Corey Patterson isn't taking this observation as criticism -- the play worked out swimmingly for me.

Besides, the batter that immediately followed, Melvin Mora, didn't do Baltimore any favors when he decided to bunt, apparently on his own initiative. On the bright side, he certainly had the element of surprise; on the down side, Patterson was among the surprised. He stuck close to third while Huston Street fielded the bunt and threw Mora out. (We should add that Street's throw was rushed, and it took a pretty sweet play from Todd Walker at first to secure the out.)

You don't often see a team shoot itself in the foot like that on successive plays, but I don't think the A's should feel obliged to grant the Orioles a do-over.

Le Affaire Halsey: There's a decided backlash brewing against Brad Halsey, the erstwhile fill-in starter turned disgruntled AAA rotation filler, for loosing his venom on the A's after the team either forced him to pitch on a bum arm until it came time to pay him a Major-League salary (Halsey's take) or passed him over on a promotion to the big club in favor of a more deserving candidate (Billy Beane's version). There's been a predictable amount of we-keep-you-alive-to-serve-the-ship-row-well-and-live talk directed at Halsey from some sections of the fanbase. One thing that's hard to overlook, for me anyhow: if the facts of the matter are as Halsey outlines, dude's kind of got a legitimate beef.

All in All: I TiVo'ed the game, fully expecting to enjoy it in all its time-shifted splendor. And I was certainly on my way to doing just that, with the A's up 5-1, when I happened to browse over to the wrong Web site and notice the 6-5 final score. "6 to 5?" I said out loud. "How on earth did the game get that close?" So I kept watching to see how things unfolded, which allowed me to watch the ninth inning with a certain detachment, since I knew things would turn out A-OK. It was easier on my nerves a little bit, though not as much as you might think.

The number of injuries the A's suffer every year is ridiculous, and when they cluster at one position, you have to think there's some cruel joke going on. Right now, Mark Kotsay is on the DL, Milton Bradley is on the DL, Bobby Kielty is unavailable with a sore calf, and Travis Buck is out with sore wrists. So, of course, in the top of the first inning of today's A's-Orioles game, Nick Swisher strains his left hamstring, and has to leave the game.

So with no available outfielders left on the bench, Marco Scutaro replaced Swisher in the lineup, and went into right field. Danny Putnam, who is primarily a corner outfielder but has played a few games in center in the minors, moved over to center.

Anybody care to give up a centerfielder for Brad Halsey?

Well, you knew going in that this was inevitable, just like you know that at some point this season, Bobby Crosby will get hurt, too. It's just the way things are.

The A's added two new players to the 25- and 40-man rosters, Dallas Braden and Danny Putnam. Mark Kotsay goes to the 60-day DL to make room for one, and Scott Dunn was released to make room for the other. Dunn was a minor-league off-season signing who didn't make much of an impression this spring.

Braden is one-trick pony, a left-handed screwballer. Kevin Goldstein in a Baseball Prospectus chat said about him:

Set your way-back machine to 1981 and Fernando-mania, because Braden's best pitch is a screwball that minor league hitters have NO CLUE how to hit. Braden is certainly no Fernando because he lacks the velo to back it up, and I think big league hitters will be able to either read or lay off the pitch. I'm not overly optimistic about him, but as a 24th round pick, he's already well-exceeded expectations.

So even if Braden isn't good, he'll at least be interesting. He'll start Tuesday. Putnam seems similar to Travis Buck--corner OF, can take a walk, doubles power--only not quite as good, and a year older. Your typical A's backup outfielder. Not much to be excited about, but if he gets anywhere near that 1.001 OPS he had in AA Midland, I'll reserve the right to change my mind and get excited later.

I suppose if you're into soap operas, Brad Halsey ripping the A's organization about being passed over for this assignment are worth getting excited about. How's this for juicy:

"It's all just a business decision, because if I came up and pitched Tuesday and then had an MRI and had to go on the DL, they'd have to pay me major-league DL money. It's such a mom-and-pop organization."

...

"I'm going to get my arm healthy and hopefully I'll start throwing baseballs for someone else."

Hmm...how does a Jose Capellan-for-Brad Halsey trade of disgruntled minor leaguers sound to you, Doug Melvin?

Today's game summary is brought to you with the able assistance of Susan Slusser's game report in the San Francisco Chronicle:

[The A's] held a two-run lead in the eighth inning, but the Rangers scored three runs against Oakland's top two relievers, Justin Duchscherer and Huston Street, to rally for a 4-3 victory and the series win.

Guh.

Game 18: Rangers 4, A's 3

Your Pitchers of Record: WP -- W. Eyre (1-0) LP -- J. Duchscherer (1-1) S -- Otsuka (2)

Went Deep: Stewart (2)

Your Nation's Strawberry Pie Star of the Game:

Street, who had retired the first hitter he faced in all nine of his appearances this year, came in and got two strikes against Hank Blalock. Blalock then fished for a changeup down and away, and one-handed, dunked it into right to drive in two runs.

Bah.

The Turning Point:

Duchscherer lost his signature control and put Mark Teixeira on, and followed that with a bases-loaded walk to Sammy Sosa.

Glaaaaaaargh!

Dreaded Larry Davis Sighting:

Before the game, [the A's] learned their most talented pitcher, Rich Harden, will miss his next start. During the game, Milton Bradley left with a recurrence of the hamstring strain that cost him a week on the last homestand and that could now land him on the disabled list.

[Inaudible gurgling noise]

Worth Noting:

Chad Gaudin continued a remarkable run for the A's starting pitchers, who have not allowed more than three runs in a start for the past 16 consecutive games.

Huhm?

All in All:

"Everything was up,'' Duchscherer said. "I wasn't making pitches, I was getting balls up, I was getting behind in the count. You can't pitch like that, obviously. I just made bad pitches. Sometimes, you go out there and you don't have what you need to get people out."

[Disconsolate sigh.]

It was my wife's birthday, Saturday so just like the last time someone in the Michaels household officially hit the mid-30s. We spent the day in Monterey frolicking with otters and eating our way through the Alsace region, so we missed most of the A's game. In our defense, so did the Oakland batters, apparently.

While it seems a bit churlish to complain about a bad offensive night less than 24 hours after the A's scored 16, how can you be anything but churlish when an A's runner only gets past first base in the sixth inning? And as nice as Friday's performance was, the A's have had a lot more games like Saturday's this season. It isn't too hard to figure out what the outlier is.

Equally aggravating, neither of the A's flagship stations reach the Monterey area with any clarity -- 106.9 FM sort of came in, but it was completing for space on the FM band with a Latin music station, so most of Vince Cotroneo's play-by-play was backed by a saucy beat, when it wasn't being drowned out entirely.

"Travis Buck steps in, 0-for-2 on the night to face Wils... Mi amor robó mi corazón... ball two, inside...."

I had forgotten to check on the A's broadcast affiliates before leaving town, so I wasn't sure which station in the Monterey area picks up A's games. (KRKC 1490 AM in King City, I guess.) And as we got past Gilroy, the regular A's stations started coming in stronger. Just in time for me to hear the Rangers put away the game with five runs in the eighth, lucky me.) But while scanning the dial, I came across the broadcast of the Angels-Mariners game coming in clear as a bell. Ken Korach and Vince Cotroneo may be broadcasting from a boat anchored out in international waters, but Rory Markus and Terry Smith are apparently hovering over my car no matter where I travel to. Again -- lucky me.

One of these days, Lew Wolff is going to announce that the A's new broadcast deal is to have Ken Korach talking on the other end of a tin can and string or Robert Buan standing up on top of Mt. Davis signaling the play-by-play with semaphore flags, and I will not be the least bit surprised.

Game 17: Rangers 7, A's 0

Your Pitchers of Record: WP -- K. Loe (1-0) LP -- J. Kennedy (0-2)

Went Deep: Kata (2)

Your King Estate Pinot Noir Star of the Game: Apparently this was Kameron Loe's first start of the year, and 5 1/3 innings of shutout baseball is a pretty good way to solidify your place in the rotation. Then again, C.J. Wilson did put down the A's only offensive threat of the night by striking out Eric Chavez and Milton Bradley with the bases loaded in the sixth.

Hmmm. Loe or Wilson? Wilson or Loe? What say you, Dalls Morning News?

... this night was all about Loe, who proved he was ready to start when his turn came.

Fair enough. They saw the game, after all. I was busy eating beef rouladen.

The Turning Point: You don't have to watch the game to know that having your two big hitters strike out with the bases loaded is not a recipe for winning baseball games.

A less obvious moment occurred in the Rangers half of the seventh, when Texas had runners on first and second with one out. Alan Embree wound up walking Gerald Laird and his formidable sub-.200 on-base percentage; that would allow Nelson Cruz to score on Jerry Hairston's fly ball, putting Texas out in front 2-zip. I suppose a two-run lead in Texas is hardly a secure one, but the way the A's were swinging the bats Saturday, it's about as close to secure as you are going to get. Just to be sure, the A's coughed up another five runs in the eighth. Sheesh.

Dreaded Jamie Reed Sighting: Pitching with a seven-run lead in the ninth -- had to get his work in, I guess -- Eric Gagne had a back spasm, requiring a visit from the Rangers' trainer.

I just wanted to see what it felt like to write one of these things without mentioning Larry Davis. Kind of weird, actually.

Phil's Not-So Phun Phacts: Heard this from Ken Korach during the warm-up for Sunday's game: apparently, this is the second time in A's history that the team has followed up a 16-run outburst by getting shut out the following game.

All in All: Every time the A's score 10 or more runs, I usually mutter something along the lines of "save some for tomorrow." The A's never seem to take my sage advice.

The A's ensured that I would be unable to use my "This offense just doesn't score enough" macro by ringing up 16 runs against the Rangers. Indeed, the A's offense -- which, this season, tends put up a crooked number early and then take its foot off the gas -- scored eight in the second, two in fourth, and six more in the eighth for an honest-to-goodness laugher at the expense of former third-base coach Ron Washington.

Naturally, the game wasn't on TV back in the Bay Area so the home-town fans have no video evidence of this rare offensive outburst.

In fact, this was the first game of the season that I was completely shut out of -- no TV, no radio, only a fleeting glimpse at the Web and then the out-of-town scoreboard at Phone Company Park to keep me apprised of the situation in Arlington. Yes, I spent Friday night at the Giants-Diamondbacks game, watching San Francisco's 4-2 win in the lap of luxury.

My company, you see, has a handful of tickets in the Club Level at Phone Company Field. These are the seats where, when the action on the field fails to entertain, you can repair to the lounge where an assortment of hand-carved sandwiches and tomato bisques and beverages, alcoholic and un-, await your consumption. Or if you prefer, you can dispatch one of the ushers to fetch you an order of garlic fries, lest you miss a single at-bat.

Most of the time, these seats are allocated to Important Men discussing Important Deals. "So it's decided," one of them will declare. "Johnson will control the molasses trade west of the Mississippi and McShane will agree to extend political protection from the judges he controls. Now let us cement this new understanding with some chocolate sundaes from the Ghirardelli stand. Garcon!"

Anyhow, the Important Men don't always use these seats -- when you're out doing Important Things, you don't have time for such trivialities of baseball -- so sometimes these seats are distributed amongst the peons. And there is no one more peon-like than me. So I grabbed the free ticket and sat among the swells. And I enjoyed my hand-carved barbecue beef sandwich while watching a strange version of baseball in which the pitcher is forced to bat. And I spent a good deal of the Giants game watching the out-of-town scoreboard and hoping that the inning number would flip to "F" before Texas mounted one of those comebacks that is oh-so-common at the Ballpark at Arlington No Longer Named After Ameriquest.

Looks like I got my wish.

Continue reading...

You score sixteen runs, and what do you get?
Another win closer... but they're not there yet.

[with apologies to Merle Travis]

-- - --

Brandon McCarthy in April 2007: 10.20 ERA, 2.07 WHIP, 15.0 IP, 25 hits, 17 ER, 6 BB, 7 K

Esteban Loaiza in April 2006: 8.35 ERA, 2.13 WHIP, 18.1 IP, 30 hits, 17 ER, 9 BB, 6 K

Fair comparison? McCarthy is not this bad, and will rebound. It's nice to get a W in the launching pad at Arlington, though. Oakland went 5-5 on the road against the Rangers last season.

-- - --

And now, some trivia about past games in which Oakland has scored 16 runs:

Since 1957, there have been 13 games in which the A's have scored exactly 16 runs. They are 12-1 in those games, with the only loss coming in 2000 in a slugfest won by Texas 17-16.

The last season in which Oakland scored at least 16 runs was way back in 2005, when they did it twice. Many still fondly recall the 16-0 beatdown of the Giants in June -- a game in which a fresh-off-the-DL Rich Harden gave up one hit and the A's banged out 23.

The last time the A's scored 16 was at a game I happened to have attended. Oakland was in Kansas City to visit the Royals in the midst of another headlong rush at 100 losses. The one and only Jose Lima pitched, and Dan Johnson knocked out the 10th homer of his rookie season. Oh, and current Sacramento River Cat Donnie Murphy made an error for his then-employer Kansas City.

-- - --

With a double, home run and three walks, Travis Buck now leads the A's with a .440 on-base percentage. That puts him at 9th in the American League among all players with at least 50 plate appearances, while his OPS of 1.004 places him 8th in the AL. Pretty good so far for a rookie that came into the season with exactly zero at-bats above the double-A level.

Oddly enough, the last A's rookie to get on base five times in one game was Dan Johnson, in the aforementioned 16-1 win over the Kansas City Royals. Johnson had two hits and three walks, including a homer. Someone needs to warn Buck about the dangers of sunscreen in your eyes, and soon.

With no game to summarize and the prospect of talking about Dan Johnson's hip too dreary to contemplate, let us turn our attention to the always riveting subject of fantasy baseball.

As readers who've committed every word ever posted on this site can tell you, Ken has a Yahoo-based fantasy baseball league; both Ryan and I are participants, and you do not have to be proficient at math to realize the implications of this -- every member of the Catfish Stew Galaxy of Bloggers is participating in this fantasy league.

Along with some other people. I guess. But it's the participation of the three of us that's piqued my interest.

Fans of 1890s baseball will remember the the Temple Cup, the trophy presented to the winner of an ill-considered post-season series between the winner of the National League and the runner-up. I recently read Where They Ain't, a nifty little history of the original Baltimore Orioles, and the Temple Cup figures prominently in the book, as the Orioles always seemed to be losing it every year. The problem with the Temple Cup is that pennant winner was usually uninspired -- and hung-over -- after winning the prize that mattered, so that the second-place team, more often than not, took home the trophy. And who wants to see second-place teams constantly beating out the clubs that bested them during the regular season? The post-season series withered on the vine and took the Temple Cup with it.

(Mini-review of Where They Ain't: Painstakingly researched, it paints an excellent picture of the times and it's a pretty good read if you can get past the author's unfortunate decision to adopt the turn-of-the-century patois. Pitchers become twirlers, fans become cranks, and passages like "[The Orioles] had come to Savannah expecting a cherry pie" and "Best of all was the Orioles' snap and ginger" dot the prose. Folks who are interested in old-timey baseball, the Orioles, the Brooklyn Dodgers (who feature prominently in the narrative) or Baltimore of the 1890s will find it a worthwhile read.)

So back when Ryan joined the league, I proposed a Temple Cup-like trophy be awarded to whichever Catfish Stew blogger finished ahead of the other two. Since neither Ken nor Ryan responded, I interpreted their silence to be assent. And so I set out to find an appropriate totem, something that, like the Temple Cup before it, would represent the majesty, the pride and the ultimate insignificance of this accomplishment.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is that trophy.

This handsome devil is Cesar Izturis, currently of the Chicago Cubs, but formerly of the Los Angeles Dodgers. One lovely June night in 2005, the Dodgers decided to honor him with a bobblehead. Maybe it was because of his 2004 Gold Glove award or his .302 on-base percentage in 106 games of the 2005 season or the fact that he's a nice fellow who probably pays his fair share of taxes. Nevertheless, he gets a bobblehead as a testament to how much the Dodger organization valued and appreciated him, at least until Greg Maddux became available as a rent-a-player. The tale of how I came into possession of this bobblehead follows after the fold.

And so, at the end of the 2007 season, this bobblehead of Cesar Izturis will be removed from its place of honor in my office, where Cesar currently looks down from a bookcase and nods in approval at all my wise decisions, and presented to whichever Catfish Stew writer finishes with the best record in Fantasy League play. As of this writing, that would be me -- I'm not only ahead of Ken and Ryan, but leading the whole damn league. I mention this not to boast but because I will soon be plummeting back to earth. This week, Ken's team is facing mine in head-to-head competition, and he's currently making like