1) Didn't think we competed tonight offensively. Only saw about 120 pitches in 10 innings of baseball. This after seeing 170 or so last night. Didn't see the same offense tonight. Credit to Braden for being around the zone, but he's a 5/3 K/BB guy, and we managed to strikeout 10 times while walking once, and giving him 17 swinging strikes. Dallas Braden is a solid pitcher, but there is no excuse for letting him put up a line like that.
2) Like Snell throwing up in the zone, and really like the 92-94 he was hitting on the gun from innings four through six. Want to see him do it in Arlington against a decent lineup before I get somewhat excited. A's offense is pathetic.
3) Don't like the six man pen if Wak is going to waste Kelley by only using him one inning, and then go to Texeira only two innings later. How can you use both of your multiple inning guys so early in the action? He pretty much eliminated Brandon League from being used at any point because if Texeira comes out, now you are awfully close to running out of relievers.
I would advise Wak to not use both Kelley and Texeira in the same game, let alone use one of them for only one inning and then use the other one when you still have a guy like League who hasn't pitched.
Texeira didn't pitch poorly tonight but given that he was the last multiple inning guy left, Wak couldn't even seriously consider using League vs Ellis in the tenth.
As useless as that 7th man usually is, he at least allows the manager to manage his pen with freedom. If Garrett Olson is sitting in the pen as an emergency guy, maybe we don't have to run the rookie back out there after he pitches a highly stressful ninth inning.
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