A's Cutest Couple Candidate #1--Keiichi Yabu and Andy Painter

Keiichi Yabu and his intrepid translator Andy Painter continue to delight us.  This article in today's Chron demonstrates just how great they are.  For example, we love that Andy says in the article, "Every time they lose, I freak out.''  And we also love that Yabu is learning Spanish and has his locker in the "Latin corner" of the clubhouse--which it turns out, is the best place to be.  "As far as I'm concerned, this corner rocks,'' Painter said. "Everyone else follows their lead.''

Comments

[Will]

Off topic, but for y'all that don't pay much attention to the NL: Hudson vs. Mulder tonight in Atlanta.

[tezuka]

Also off topic, but for y'all that don't pay much attention to anything other than present and former A's, Clemens vs. Maddux tonight -- the first 300 game winner vs. 300 game winner duel in 18 years. Go Cubs!

[dtz]

In response to Also off topic: This is an A's blog, not a baseball blog. Not to say I don't appreciate baseball in general, but mostly I just love the A's. I like to read about my boys and like OAD because they write about my boys (with a little bit of Giant's hating thrown in). Thanks girls keep up the good work.

[Anna]

Also off topic, but actually related to the A's: Did anyone read in the A's Mailbag that after he makes one of those incredible defensive plays, Marco Scutaro writes his parents initials behind second base. How cute is that??

But seriously, I did love this article about Yabu and Andy. It's truly great that they're on our team, and I hope Andy sticks around even after Yabu learns English!

Oh, and please say that Cutest Couple Candidate #2 is Nick Swisher and me!

[CM]

I don't want to join the crowd and go off topic, I really don't. But I don't know where else to vent. In an old post? Anyway, I need to vent so this is where it has to be. It's clear that the A's consistently choke when there's a player on 3rd with less than 2 outs. My question is this - can we begin suggesting solutions? I see 3 possible solutions just off the top of my head.

1. Find an extremely good contact hitter somewhere in the minors or around the league and put them on the bench as a 'pinch sacrificer' for late inning very close games.

2. Forget Beane Ball and simply try to sacrifice one run home rather than going for the big inning.

3. Spend money on better contact hitters and forget the OBP approach.

Jose Guillen for instance I really liked on the A's. He didn't try to walk every time up, and he hit the ball hard. I don't recall him striking out any more often than any of these OBP guys we have hitting all over the lineup. Our contact hitters are striking out and popping up left and right. Guillen, by the way, we could have kept for not a lot of money. I think Kendall is supposed to be that clutch contact hitter we need, but remember he's $11M. Is he that much more clutch than a Damian Miller or Ramon Hernandez? Neither of those guys had a lot of pop either and I thought each showed the ability to get a single in a clutch situation. I'm not trying to insinuate that the Kendall signing was bad, just trying to put things in perspective with $/payoff. Pujols is making $11M.

[CM]

By the way, I savor every time I look at the scores and see another Yankee loss. I'm beginning to think the 'buy high' approach is really messing up that team. I'm so happy.

[Steve-o]

My first time in the ballpark this year. Didn't get to see Yabu tonight, but Calero looked great in his return. That's one heckuva changeup that guy has. Wow! Haren looked great too. And Ichiro did his thing as usual. In my opinion the guy is worth A-Rod money. He is incredible every time I see him play. He impacts the game like Ricky did in his prime. Ricky did it on the basepaths stealing whenever he wanted. Ichiro does it with his bat putting the ball anywhere he wants to.

[Noriko]

Hi!My name is Noriko.I am a Japanese.
I like Keiichi Yabu since he played baseball
in Japan.
So,I found your blog when I seached "keiichi
Yabu" in Yahoo.

[Anna]

Hi Noriko! We like Keiichi Yabu too, and we're all very glad that he's on our team now.

[frances]

Was at A's game with Red Sox when than won (18May). We were in Luxury Suite and i saw a player practicing for possible relief pitching during last half inning. I commented to my husband "he looks Japanese" and he said he might be Mexican. Well we found out this morning on Daily Review he was K.Yabu, a Japanese so we're rooting for him and the whole team!

Do you have more statistics (biography) on him? We women like to read more personal stuff.