Comments on: Oakland A’s

By: Ken's Brother

Ken's Brother — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 20:31:01 +0000

Yeah, although we are talking about the AL East…
but frankly I’d only rather play the Yankee’s because I can actually stand losing to the Yankee’s… I can stand going to see the games against the Yankee’s when there are tons of Yankee fans.
I hate the BoSox with such a passion I can’t stand going to a game knowing that there is a possibility I’ll sit next to a BoSox fan.
Losing to the BoSox is the worst because they’re such a hypocritical fanbase, they hate the Yankee’s because the Yankee’s spend $200 million on payroll, but they see nothing wrong with theirselves spending $180 million (when we’re spending a mere $60 million). They like to think of the Yankee’s as the evil empire, despite the fact they’re just as bad, the only difference between the Yankee’s and BoSox is that the Yankee’s are just more successfull at being the evil empire, while the BoSox aren’t.

By: kencraw

kencraw — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:24:40 +0000

Man, I forgot about that stupid “no divisional matchups” rule for the playoffs. They’ve got it in the NFL too. I assume they pick who the NL East winner will play based on which of the two remaining teams (subtractin the NL East wild card team) has the worst record. So assuming my logic is correct, if we want to play NYY in the first round, we need get ahead of the White Sox in the standings. Yes?

I suspected that about the DH, but I wasn’t sure.

By: Ken's Brother

Ken's Brother — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:05:23 +0000

Well for starters you DH is always your DH, he can’t go into the field. Hence it would have made a lot of sense Tuesday night to slide Hatteberg over to 1B but he was the DH… lucky for us, the future ROY (Nick Swisher) can play a little 1B (and just to clarify the pinch runner Bynum played Left with Kielty moving from left to right).
Secondly, a team can’t play the Wild Card in the first round if they’re from the same division as us, so unless the Angels take the wild card (or someone from the Central does lol) it’ll be Boston or New York in the first round. I know it sucks, the rationale behind it is that Fox and MLB loves Boston vs NYY in the ALCS, so they’ll make sure that is always possible.

By: kencraw

kencraw — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 17:16:06 +0000

A follow up thought, I just looked at the standings in the AL. The Red Sox are only 3 games back of the White Sox. Hell, we’re only 5 1/2 games back. With a whole month left to play, there is a pretty reasonable chance that Boston will overtake Chicago. That’s really the best case scenario for us: We take the West and Boston is the top team in the league.

As sad as it seems, the best thing to do now is to root for the Red Sox.

By: kencraw

kencraw — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 16:39:26 +0000

I agree with you about Payton. He is a gamer and will do us more good than harm long term. He’s just in a slump. One that it responsible for 3 or 4 double plays in the last two days. Notice that I didn’t say he needed to be taken out.

You’re probably right about Kendall, but he’s been stinking it up for a while now. All the way back before the 14-game slump we were in. I’m just frustrated to see the slump continue.

We should put Melhuse in instead of Hatteburg. They should have called up another catcher instead of Ginter when Crosby was placed on the disabled list. That way they wouldn’t have issue if Kendall had to come out of a game with who to put in his place.

Which brings up a question, can the DH “switch” positions during the game and start playing in the field? As an example, when we had a pinch-runner for our first baseman in the first game of the series, the right fielder came and played first base and the pinch runner played right field. Can we do the same thing with the DH? If Kendall came out of the game as the catcher, could Melhuse as the DH become the catcher and the replacement for Kendall become the DH? That would give us a great deal more flexiblity.

And yeah, Boston is the team that worries me the most in the playoffs. Maybe we need to figure out how to sandbag ourselves into the wildcard spot, kick the crud out of the flailling White Socks and then hope the Angels can beat Boston. The problem is I don’t think the Angels are going to keep pace with NYY so if we sandbag ourselves below the Angels we’ll be sending ourselves home for October. Not that sandbagging is ever a good policy when you need momentum going into the playoffs.

By: Ken's Brother

Ken's Brother — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 16:24:48 +0000

Although I agree it’ll be a good sign for us should we win, I just don’t share your confidence that we’ll get past the first round. Right now as it stands we’d get Boston in the first round (the White SOX would get the Yankee’s in the first round). Granted I think we’ll win the division over the Los Angeles Angels near Riverside via San Diego of Anaheim, but the matter is we just don’t have what we need to win in the postseason when up against a team like Boston.
As for Payton, I’ll take his gamer attitude every day of the week when he’s making unassisted outs from center field to prevent doubles, I’ll gladly give up a double play every now and then.
Melhuse may be a nice option, but I don’t like him as much as Kendall, he’s a career 300 hitter, and he’ll hit himself out of this slump.
As for Hatteburg, we just don’t have anyone left in the dugout lol.