Oakland

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M's 13, pesky rodent Angels 2

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Season's on!  Season's off!  Season's on!  Season's off!

Ya mooks, youse.  :: grrrrr ::

.........

We listened to (some of) the game on radio.  The M's got 14 hits and 4 walks, but then again, on Sunday they got 12 hits and walks in a shutout.  

Dr. D figured that, on Tuesday, Pascal's triangle had simply worked its BABIP magic -- that all of these randomly-struck balls simply found grass this time.  Later that night, he turned on his DVR to watch the bloops fall in.

Offensive Creation - Unlucky or Incompetent?

From the inestimable DaddyO: 
 
 
...it's beginning to look like this team is exactly what we expected, a .500-plus-a-few-games team. It could have been so much more with the pickup of one solid bat over the offseason and a couple at the trade deadline. We all instinctively knew it at the time; either Jack just failed to execute, again, or he was, again, just unlucky. People will pick which one based on their view of Jack. I know which one I pick.

M's vs Royals: Pick 'Em Betting Line

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Q.  What is the probability of the M's making the postseason?  2%, or 5%, or what?

A.  According to MLB.com, it's 43%.  Flip a coin.  Your chances of calling it correctly, are about the same as the M's chances of gearing up for a big national TV game in October.

Of course, you have no feelings about the coin; you do have residual electroshock convulsions when you look at a Mariner logo.  Those were acquired from the last two horrible games.  But, as with dice and coins, MLB teams tend to forget what happened on the last toss.  

"Momentum is as good as that night's starting pitcher."  Again, the M's win a game or two, and all feels right with the universe again.  Ahhhhh, the bittersweet flavor that is the Human Experience.

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Sizzlers and Fizzlers

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Emphasis on the below Sizzlers ...

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James Paxton

In our pregame on Friday, we gave these as the keys to his short-term futures price:

  • LO:  Paxton finally takes a mulligan, unable to find the strike zone, loses badly
  • MID:  He throws strikes, has no pitchability, and sheer stuff produces an Ultra Quality Start
  • HI:  He finally gets a whipsaw, and pitchability, going, fanning 8+ (Orcs' fan excerpts tomorrow)

Oddly, he was --- > 65% LO ... 35% HI ... with 0% MID.

He had less command than we've seen in a long time, maybe ever.  This seemed to arise from the home plate ump squeeeeeezing him the first 10-15 pitches, and then Paxton rattled.  A blizzard of 2-0 and 3-1 counts followed.  After two batters, and certainly after the 3rd inning, we took it as a given that Paxton would finally blow up his sparkling ERA.

Like Muhammad Ali playing rope-a-dope for seven rounds, Paxton absorbed the 3-1 welts under his eye and punched back with 97 MPH fastballs right down the pipe.  Along about the third inning, his curve ball became really dangerous -- the first time that's been true since April.  Voila:  a combo of LO and HI.

The result:  6 IP, 1 ER, three pitted-out undershirts, 8 strikeouts ... and Lloyd McClendon calling him "The Glue."  Paxton's the glue already?  That's a little bit like saying "Percy Harvin Or Bust."

........

Do keep in mind :- ) James Paxton isn't actually the 2nd BEST rookie SP of all time.  He's undoubtedly outside the top 50, if we are talking baseball history.  

Just in Seattle, we'll give you two recent ones.  Michael Pineda was a tad better overall pitcher as a rookie (though Pineda had nowhere to go from there; he had absolutely no way to get better).  Certainly the rookie Felix was better than Paxton is.  Paxton's ERA is flavor text; you don't predict Paxton's ERA to be below 3.00 in his next 14 starts.

But Paxton is very good already, and he's not supposed to be.  His FIP and xFIP are already comparable to Jeff Samardzija's.  Paxton's early success is in reality a mere seismograph as to what is coming.

Like we sez in Mo' Dawg's thread, James Paxton's value to a franchise is obviously comparable to that of Tim Lincecum, Steven Strasburg, and Justin Verlander after 10-15 starts.  

You tell me why the Seattle blog-o-sphere soft-pedals this guy so much.  They act like if they got excited about Paxton, somebody would type HOMER in all caps at them.  :: shudder ::

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Felix

Still not back on form.  But Saturday, he did get some changeups back to knee level, with bite.  He looked sloppy, like there was play in the steering column, but was not laboring.

Don't forget that ALL starting pitchers, except Randy Johnson, frazz in and out.  Felix's frazzouts tend to be Ultra Quality Starts.

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Speaking of 'Fine Literature' ...

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The Counselor thanks us all for the insight we've provided on the Oakland A's this year.  That's a little bit like Pete Carroll thanking Dave "Softy" Mahler for his suggestions on cornerback play.

But Mojo has not a single Muhammad Ali / Richard Sherman bone in his body, which is in sharp contradistinction to the shtick loudmouthed by that TIC "Dr. Detecto" character.  :- )  

A's Meltdown

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You might think it was excusable to lose to Chris Sale, or to Randy Johnson, or to Lefty Grove, or to Sydd Finch for that matter.  Not so at Athletics Nation :- )

The worst thing about this series is, we could have easily gone 3-1. All of our three losses were one-run contests, with two coming via epic late inning collapses. That’s the worst. If the A’s had just gotten blown out like a normal bad team, this would have been easier to stomach...

No, no, no, the worst thing about this series was the pitching. The pitching was absolutely masterful. Jeff Samardjiza, Sonny Gray, and Scott Kazmir combined to give up 4 runs in 22 IP. The A’s lost all three starts.

... The A’s put together some valiant teAses in the 8th and 9th inning, but yeah, they still managed to get shut out. Because A’s.

There’s just not a lot to say about this game. In another world, this would have been an incredible and entertaining pitchers’ duel, like Anibal Sanchez versus Kazmir earlier this year. In this world, where the A’s have somehow become terrible, it was just a miserable trudge towards the inevitable. At least it was over quickly, ending in just over two hours.

... I think the fire Beane talk is ridiculous, the fire Melvin talk is more ridiculous, and the "blow the team up and trade Donaldson" talk is the most ridiculous of all. ...

Nelson Cruz: Lessons Learned (? or not)

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Mojo sez,

[Good for Tejas, Holland beating K-Pax] That poor team deserves something to cheer about. Nobody except Oakland deserves the horrible things that have happened to the Rangers this year. Kinsler for Fielder and hold the health. Jurickson Profar, the hope of Texas up in smoke. Shin-Soo Choo goes missing. And Washington quits without two weeks notice. So they got their Holland back and he still has it. GOOD. The carnage was making me queasy.  

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Two weeks notice :- )

The rest of us in the SSI crowd doesn't know if Nelson Cruz' performance in Baltimore was included in the 'carnage' to which the Counselor refers.  But today, Cruz had ANOTHER two homers ... and a triple just to gloat! ... as the Orioles ran their division lead to +9.5 games.  That's double digits.  The M's didn't even win by double digits when they won 116 games, we don't think ...

But the Rangers' B team from two years ago is also now carrying other teams to glory.  They're down there in Texas, wringing their hands, Oh, if only we had our old #7 hitter to legitimize this lineup...

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