Oakland A's Days

Oakland A's Days' Stream of Consciousness Frustrations

Losing 2 to the Royals.  At home.  Who are the worst team in baseball (possibly ever).  Eric Chavez getting hurt.  Mark Ellis getting hurt.  Sketchy obliques, fragile hands and wonky backs.  May.  A bullpen full of guys we have barely heard of and can't tell apart.  3 of 4 sophomores slumping.  Pop ups. . . soo many pathetic pop ups.  Denny Bautista's braces.  The melting of the ice in Huston Street's veins.  The A's collective amnesia re what to do when runners are in scoring position.  Getting beat by Matt Stairs.  Losing, losing and more losing.  Finding new ways of losing.  Losing 10 of 11.  Losing countless 1-run games.  Losing after coming from behind.  Losing after having a 7 run lead.  Ambiorix frigging Burgos.

Buckle Down Athletics!

Damn You, Ambiorix Burgos

And A's, it is time to buckle down. 

Oakland A's Days Keeps the Faith

From today's Chron:  "We had an excellent opportunity to win two of three, banged up as we are," said Macha, whose six-man disabled list has missed a total of 136 games. "We have to keep the faith."

Times are tough, but Macha is right -- there are plenty of reasons to stay positive. May is almost over, the A's are only 1 game out of first place even following a 5-game losing streak, and it truly feels like things can only get better.

Go A's!

Oakland A's Days' Comment Card

How would you rate our performance?  (From 5 Stars***** to 1 Star*) We think we would give the A's 1 star* for this losing streak.  While this seems harsh, we temper it by saying that we think the A's are going to turn it around today.  A 4 game losing streak is one thing, but 5 games?  No way!  The A's are too good for that.

How would you rate the freshness of our product?  (From 5 Stars***** to 1 Star*) We have to give the A's another disappointing 1 star* right now on freshness.  This low grade is the result of the fact that we basically attribute all of this recent losing to Jason Kendall's momentum destroying GIDP in that Saturday game against the Giants.  Said GIDP definitely wasn't "fresh."  In fact, it was as stale as a bag of pretzels left in a desk drawer for more than a year (not that we would know anything about such things).

Was the service courteous and friendly?  Hello?  Have you heard of the best clubhouse in baseball?
Were you served in a reasonable amount of time? We are very happy that many of the A's (especially Eric Chavez) seemed to get off to a much easier start this year, although we fear the May doldrums are setting in.
Would you recommend the Oakland A's to a friend? You bet we would!  We would even recommend the Oakland A's to our enemies -- although it would be too bad if we had to sit by our enemies during A's homegames. Suggestions:  Let's Go Oakland!

2 Big Homers + 1 Squirrel + 10 Innings = Not Too Much

It is really too bad that the A's couldn't beat the White Sox last night. But the game definitely had some highlights.  We loved Big Frank's 2 big homers.  And the nice signs and standing ovation from the Chicago crowd.  We also liked the squirrel that ran on the field and interrupted the game.  It is just too bad that the Big Hurt plus a little squirrel only add up to a one run loss in extra innings. 

Eugene on Recent Events (With A Little Trivia)

Hi, Oakland A's Days, this is Eugene. Did you see the Giants game today? I was really disappointed. Jason Kendall was at the plate and Crosby was at third. Kendall hit the ball to Feliz who doubled up Crosby. They had a chance to win today and they blew it. Brad Halsey pitched a good game but they couldn't score for him. Why didn't Ken Macha put Melhuse in? Melhuse is a better hitter than Kendall. Lots of people have called into ``Extra Innings'' complaining about how Kendall hits into too many double plays. Melhuse hit a grand slam against Seattle on Tuesday. If I was Ken Macha, I would have put in Melhuse in that situation. He would have hit a walk off homerun or a game winning double.

Another thing. Frank Thomas is too anxious at the plate. He has got to relax. Shooty Babbitt said that his best days are behind him. I remember Thomas in his hey day with the White Sox. Here is some trivia on Frank Thomas.

His middle name is Edward.

He is also a born again Christian.

Do you think we made a mistake in signing Jason Kendall? He hasn't hit a homerun since he came to Oakland. He is the third player in Oakland history to go on a long homerun drought. Billy North 1974 1976. Walt Weiss 1990-1992.

Oakland A's Days Weighs In

While we are wary of buying into the hype, let us just say that Oakland A's Days is having a hard time deciding whether we want you-know-who to hit you-know-what this weekend.  Of course, what we would really prefer is that he never hit another home run again.  That would be good.  But is maybe a little unrealistic.  So if he is going to hit it anyway, better it be in Oakland?  Tough to say.  Let us weigh the pros and cons (please note: this analysis presupposes that this hypothetical home run event will have no actual impact on the outcome of any game because the A's will have like a 20 run lead all weekend):

On the one hand, we love the idea of some A's fan with crummy plaza outfield seats getting the ball.  That would be great.  We would love to see this historic ball in the hands of some guy wearing an old Tejada jersey with one of those give away A's hats perched on his mullet.  On the other hand, when we think of how many times they will show the replay of this home run (if it ever happens) with some A's pitcher standing there looking stunned and some A's outfielder running hopelessly towards the wall . . . ugh.  On the third hand (there are two of us here at Oakland A's Days after all), the A's players seem sort of excited about it, and it would at least get the A's and Oakland a lot of mentions in the national media (which would be especially great if they had to note that it occurred in a LOSS to the Oakland A's).  But on the fourth hand, Oakland will forever be linked to this weird thing that we would prefer never happened in the first place, plus we all know there will tons of annoying Giants fans at the games this weekend and this would just make them SO happy.

In the end, we think we come out hoping it doesn't happen this weekend.  Personally, we would prefer not to see it and we definitely like the idea of disappointing all the  Giants' fans who come to the games in Oakland and act obnoxiously.  So there it is.  And all this hoopla aside, what we really want is a glorious sweep of our neighbors!

Let's Go Oakland!

Who Loves A Sweep?

We do!  We do!  Doobity-doo!  (Sweeps make us feel like singing!)

Oakland A's Days' Very Special Awards

With last night's drubbing of the Mariners, Oakland A's Days thought it was time to hand out some early season awards.  Here they are:

The "Marco Scutaro -- Making the Most of It" Award:

goes to Adam Melhuse who, like this award's namesake last year, is filling in like a frigging champ, hitting 2 homers last week, and a grand slam last night. 

The "Good Pitching Performances Come In Pudgy Packages" Award:

goes to Joe Blanton who had a great game and looks to be getting on track.

The "I'm So Good Lately My Name Should be Gary" Award:

goes to Jay Payton who has awoken from his offensive slumbers and is getting hits when the A's need them.

The "Reminder That Moneyball Works" Award:

goes to Nick Swisher who continues to hit home runs, get on base, and sparkle, sparkle, sparkle.

The "Last Year Wasn't a Fluke" Award:

goes to Mark Ellis, who after his slow start is looking more and more like his 2005 self.

The "We Don't Need to Get Scott Hatteberg Back" Award:

goes to Dan Johnson who we can tell is really trying.

The "16,000 on a Tuesday Night Ain't So Bad" Award:

goes to the fans who went to the game last night and gave the A's a fairly respectable mid-week attendance figure.

The "Most Appealing Baseball Team in the World" Award:

goes to, who else, the Oakland Athletics.

Go A's!

Steve Karsay Returns!

Oakland A's Days will admit that, at times, the A's bullpen is hard to love.  In so many ways, the bullpen is the black sheep of the Athletics.  But at least back when the bullpen was populated by eccentrics and castoffs (Mecir, Dotel, Rincon, Bradford etc.) it had a certain oddball charm.  Lately, however, the bullpen is less oddball and more, well . . . see, that is the problem.  What is the bullpen?  Does it even have a personality?  At least half of Oakland A's Days feels like a major part of the bullpen is made up of independent contractor type guys.  Witasick and Kennedy don't feel like A's.  They just seem like relatively competent guys who could be on any team.  (Although we admit that Kennedy won some points with his great comments following the Kendall brawl).  Kiko feels like an A.  And Huston.  Maybe Duchscherer on a good day.  But they are the only ones who have the right mixture of awesomeness and quirkiness to really capture our hearts.  We are trying though.  We swear.  We want to like the bullpen as much as we like everyone else on the A's.  So we are going to start this bullpen appreciation project with a big welcome back to Steve Karsay (who we also like because his name rhymes with A which makes Oakland Athletics poetry so much easier). 

Go A's!