Athletics

With a lineup that just keeps getting more and more “makeshift” by the minute, the A’s banged out 17 hits – three each by Wes Bankston and Emil Brown – and beat one of the AL’s better pitchers in Mark Buehrle. If nothing else, you have to admire the A’s spirit in facing adversity.

Jack Cust showed signs of life, as the streaky Cust homered for the second day in a row (giving the A’s a 2-0 lead in the 4th) and got hits both times he made contact. Donnie Murphy continued to provide a timely spark with a pair of RBI hits and a sparkling play at SS while the game was still close. Kurt Suzuki’s bunt single, Ryan Sweeney’s “you wanna pitch to me?” RBI single following an IBB to Ellis, and Bankston’s two double, first-major-league-RBI night were among countless highlights on a night when the A’s looked, on paper, to be the underdog.

Joe Blanton was outstanding, tossing 7 innings on a season-high 119 pitches and limiting the heavy-hitting White Sox to a single run. During a stretch where 17-hit attacks figure to be few and far between, it would be huge if the A’s could get Blanton going. Apparently, his game plan was to mix up the speed of his breaking pitches the second/third times through the order, and the approach worked well. Meanwhile, despite his success against the rest of the league, Mark Buehrle is now 3-11 lifetime against Oakland.

One note, as the A’s had Ellis thrown out at the plate in the 3rd with the score still 0-0…In the past week, 3rd base coach Tony DeFrancisco has made the wrong call twice on whether or not to send Ellis, holding him up in the 1-0 loss to Lincecum and the Giants and sending him tonight. Along with the other contextual considerations, such as on-deck hitter, opposing pitcher, and number of outs, Tony D would be wise to consider strongly whether or not the outfielder does, or doesn’t have to range to his left/right, to field the ball. Fred Lewis had to range to his left last Saturday, which is why he had no play at the plate, while tonight Jermaine Dye was able to set up to throw as he fielded Sweeney’s hit – if Tony D pays closer attention to this factor in making his split-second decision, he is more likely to get the next one right. And it would be a good idea, because you wouldn’t know it tonight but the A’s are going to need every run they can get.

Final Notes...Congratulations to our own Brad Ziegler, who now holds the Oakland A's record by starting his career with 16 scoreless innings...Carlos Gonzalez left the game with a "tight hamstring," so look for Mirrors to start in the OF tomorrow (because we didn't sign Smoak).

Happy 4th of July!

Mark Buehrle has been "86ed" here in game 86...4-1 A's going to the bottom of the 6th.

You have to pay $126,000,000 to find a bigger loser than Joe Blanton. Blanton, who keeps setting Oakland A's records for "fastest to x losses!" tries to earn his 5th win instead of his 12th loss. He is opposed by crafty left-hander Mark Buehrle, whose six June starts produced a 4-0 record, 1.60 ERA, and six quality starts. Blanton and Buehrle are among the fastest workers in the American League, so White Sox fans should not count on the Fireworks Show starting on time.

Keith Foulke is on the DL, Jerry Blevins is up to give the A's a second lefty in the bullpen, and Wes Bankston has a batting average as he starts tonight's game. The lineups:

Ellis - 2B
R. Sweeney - RF
Suzuki - C
E. Brown - LF
Cust - DH
Bankston - 1B
Gonzalez - CF
Murphy - SS
Hannahan - 3B

And now here's a real lineup!

Cabrera - SS
Pierzynski - C
Quentin - LF
Dye - RF
Thome - DH
Crede - 3B
Swisher - 1B
Uribe - 2B
Wise - CF

   The A’s bullpen, once a pillar of depth and dominance, is suddenly a worrisome web of wobbly weakness. At least for the next couple of weeks, until Casilla comes around and/or Devine comes back, I think a couple specific changes are needed if the A’s are to stay afloat in the 6th-8th innings of games. Here is what Dr. Nico is ordering, and why:

   1. Brad Ziegler needs to be moved into the official “set up” role. Sure he is bound to regress, but he has thrown the ball legitimately well, he has handled pressure innings just fine at the major league level, and for a while hitters will still be facing him for the first time – which means one can reasonably hope Ziggy will pitch above his “true ability” for a while, even if his true ability is not the dominance he has enjoyed over his first 15 innings.

Slotting Ziggy in the set-up role would not only give all the relievers more distinct roles (which they prefer), but it would allow Embree to pitch where he is best suited, as a “set-up to the set-up” guy – a valuable reliever who can pitch often because he’s durable, can maybe come into face a couple lefties in the 6th or 7th as needed or handle the 7th, or take over in the 10th, etc. Embree is being overexposed as the “#2 reliever,” but is in fact quite useful as one of the “3rd or 4th guys on the depth chart”. Casilla is not ready to assume high leverage situations but offers depth along side Embree – two power arms for middle relief situations.

Worried about Ziggy’s left-right splits? In the words of Mark Twain, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Looking at the numbers so far this year (note: I tried and tried to find his 2007 L/R stats and failed), his performance against left-handed hitters only looks bad if you compare it to his performance against right-handed hitters. In other words, he hasn’t struggled against left-handed hitters so much as he has thoroughly dominated right-handed hitters:

In 2008, over 24.1 IP in Sacramento, pitching in a hitter’s league Ziggy held left-handed batters to a .257 average – which is solid for a “weaker split” – but he thoroughly dominated right-handed batters, who hit just .118 against him. With Oakland so far, in 15 IP Ziggy has held lefties to a .222 average, .222 OBP, and .222 slugging percentage, while righties have hit only .185. So this season, you have a 39.1 inning sample during which Ziggy has done fine against lefties, and just using observation you can add that major league lefties have often had defensive swings against him, more and more so with each appearance, and they are producing a lot of strikeouts and routine ground balls.

   2. The A’s should release Keith Foulke and call up either Dallas Braden or Lenny DiNardo (I’ll assume Braden because he is pitching much better right now for Sacramento). This is not a “Foulke sucks!” cry, it’s recognition that the A’s need another guy capable of pitching long relief so that they can utilize Chad Gaudin more freely as another key “3rd or 4th guy on the depth chart”.

Foulke is caught between skills. He cannot pitch long relief like Gaudin can, he does not have the future of Casilla or A. Brown, and he does not have as much left in the tank as Embree. Now that his peripherals have caught up to him, Foulke is a poor-man’s version of any A’s reliever you can name.

You could potentially even use Braden as a true LOOGY when Gaudin was rested enough to serve as the “emergency long man,” but mostly Braden would be the long-man for as many days as necessary after Gaudin pitched. Foulke is holding the A’s up because while he pitches no better than Gaudin, he also takes a roster spot away from a long reliever – so Geren is unable to use Gaudin more freely. Foulke’s spot needs to go to someone who can serve as a long reliever; meanwhile, Gaudin, Casilla, and A. Brown are more than capable of filling Foulke’s middle relief shoes – and at least they represent the A’s future.

   Street closing and Ziggy setting up, flanked by Embree, Casilla, and Gaudin in middle relief, with A. Brown and Braden in the fold as needed. That looks better to me than what the A’s are throwing out there right now – heck, it may even be good.

Just when it looked like Javier Vázquez was going to shut the A's out and strike out 20+ in the process, Jack Cust happened. With one Custian swing, the ball soared majestically into the right field seats in ChiTown, tying the game at 2-2. But the A's weren't done, as super-sub Donne <s>Scutaro</s> Murphy smacked a shot of his own into the left field bleachers, giving the A's a one-run lead.

Meanwhile, Cust and Ryan Sweeney have been doing their part in the outfield as well, keeping Duchscherer and team up by a single tally going to the sixth. Let's go A's!

Coming off two unpleasant losses to the Angels, both games largely the result of a shaky bullpen, the best solution for a rebound would be for the A's to trot out their best pitcher this season, a one-time reliever himself, who is now sporting a sub 2.00 ERA, and is a near shoo-in to represent the A's in the All-Star game a second time, Justin Duchscherer. Opposing Duchscherererererer and the A's is the White Sox' Javier Vázquez, who enters the game with a middling 7-6 record and 4.49 ERA, but has the ability to make batters swing and miss, racking up 104 K's so far on the campaign, good enough for fifth in the league.

Looking to swing and make contact is an intriguing A's lineup that features Ellis and a returned Ryan Sweeney at the top of the order, Suzuki in the 3 spot, and an entertaining Cust, CarGon and Bankston following in the 4-5-6 positions. With Chavez on the DL, his left side of the infield partner, Bobby Crosby will also be sitting, in favor of Donnie Murphy. Will the A's lineup have enough to beat out the Sox's strong offense against the Duke? We'll see.

Game time is at 7:11 Central time. Get me a Slurpee. It's hot out.

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Hey, everyone! What an exciting month it’s been since I’ve been in Oakland. It’s been such a whirlwind of emotion, as well as a drastic increase in appointments and other things to do over the course of my day-in, day-out schedule. I’ve had a blast getting to pitch against hitters I’ve grown up watching, as well as playing alongside them. And it’s been great getting to share the experience with my family, friends, and the many ANers who’ve come out to the park to introduce themselves.

One of the big highlights for me so far came pretty early in the month. On Sunday, June 8th, I was called on to pitch in the 11th inning of a tie game against the Angels. They had runners at 1st and 2nd with one out, and Garrett Anderson was coming up. I coaxed him into a soft liner to short, and Gregorio Petit snagged it and flipped the ball to Mark Ellis to double the runner off 2nd and end the inning. After we failed to score in the bottom half, I went back out for the 12th, and promptly walked Vladimir Guerrero to lead off the inning. Torii Hunter then grounded into a fielder’s choice, and the Casey Kotchman followed with a groundball to short that we turned into a double play. Then came the exciting part…

With 2 outs in the bottom of the inning, we loaded the bases for Mark Ellis. He smashed the first pitch he saw from Chris Bootcheck off the left-field foul pole for a walk-off grand slam, giving us a big victory and allowing me to earn my first win as a big leaguer. What a way to get it…

Since then, I’ve pitched in a variety of game situations…including a mop-up inning in a blowout loss to the Giants and coming into a tie game in the 6th inning against the 1st-place Angels. One thing that’s been nice so far is the amount of home games we’ve had. We were on the road for 8 games in June, including 3 games in San Francisco. So we essentially had 5 road games all month, which allowed me to get settled in and learn some of the ropes while being in the comfort of the same bed night after night. That, however, is about to change quickly, as we’re about to embark on a stretch of several road trips over the next couple months.

A second highlight is being mentioned in the espn.com insider blogs of Peter Gammons (May 31 & June 27)and Buster Olney. I'm pretty sure I don't deserve the media attention I've received so far, but it's still fun to see.

One more highlight I’d like to mention was the opportunity to catch up with an old college teammate: Ryan Howard of the Phillies. While I didn’t get to pitch in the series, I got to visit with Ryan several times, get a photo with him (click Howard and Me to view the photo), and got to share the spotlight with him in an article written by Jane Lee for mlb.com. I’m glad I was able to be around for a series against the Phillies (the team that originally drafted me and released me less than a year later).

It will be a very intriguing month of July, as the front office and coaching staff will have to decide if we’re going to make a run at the playoffs and possibly acquire a player as the trade deadline approaches or if we are still committed to rebuilding and possibly trade some of our established players for more prospects. Of course, maybe neither will happen and they will let us run with the team we have and see what happens. It’s a very interesting situation, and it’s fun to be right in the thick of everything.


2008 MLB Stats: 1-0, 0 SV, 0.00 ERA, 14 G, 15 IP, 9 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 7 K, 2 BB

2008 AAA Stats: 2-0, 8 SV, 0.37 ERA, 19 G, 24.1 IP, 15 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 20 K, 4 BB


The last couple days have given us tough losses against the Angels in Anaheim, but we’re now in Chicago to hopefully bounce back and get a big series win against the AL-Central-leading White Sox. Tonight we send Justin Duchscherer to the mound in his last start before he’s hopefully named to the AL All-Star team. He’s been lights-out since I’ve arrived (hasn’t allowed more than 1 run in any start since I’ve been here), and his numbers show that he’s been lights-out all season long, holding a relatively large lead on every other big-league pitcher in ERA. Enjoy the weekend! See ya at the ballpark!

Well, I’m going to try to wade through the damage done by our “set-up men” over the last two nights, painful as it may be. The abridged version of this sad story is that on two consecutive days the A’s got enough from their starting pitching and offense to win two huge games against the division leaders, yet fell horribly short in the most disgusting of ways, and the fact that this happened twice in less than 24 hours is enough to frustrate even the most stalwart A’s fan right now.

In defense of Geren (feel free to debate at will the decision to pull Eveland in the sixth), despite the full ‘pen, he is not working with a lot of options right now, which is why you hope that the A’s could have managed to find enough good relief pitching to take at least one of the games. To me, it seemed like Geren hedged his bets to save pitching for both games, and I absolutely think this was a mistake. I would have rather blown out our entire ‘pen last night to get the series win, and not worried about today’s game at all. It doesn’t get worse than losing both of these games; the A’s had a very real chance of being 3.5 games back at the close of this series, and are now 5.5 back, and in danger of falling further behind next weekend.

But while Geren’s bullpen moves can be scrutinized in multiple threads until we are tired of it, the real truth is that the only relief pitcher who has provided any actual relief has been Brad Ziegler, and he can’t pitch every inning. The A’s were screwed last night when Harden only went five; had he pitched the sixth, Geren may have left Ziggy in for both the seventh and the eighth to get to Street. Instead, he used one of his everyday guys, and Embree failed. But who would you have rather had in that position? Brown got shelled in his last outing, Foulke appears to be done as an effective pitcher (see: today’s game), Casilla can’t stop giving up homeruns (see: today’s game), and Street can’t effectively pitch two innings. Even Gaudin gave up a run today in his inning. Put plainly, with the lone exception of Brad Ziegler (who was untouchable), the bullpen failed the A’s the last two days in every way, and I’m not sure there was a combination of pitchers that could have won either of those games, unless our manager was willing to risk Harden for an additional inning (NO), or our rookie relief pitcher for three innings and 30+ pitches (NO). Be angry all you want, but when pitchers that you have to count on to get to the closer aren’t doing their job, there isn’t anything a manager can do about it. But the truth is that the bullpen cost us not only the series win, but possibly the series sweep, and considering their success over the first half of the year, this is a bitter pill to swallow.

Eveland pitched a good game (even striking out the side in the fifth), despite his early hook. He allowed the first Angels’ run to score on a wild pitch; not exactly what the team was hoping for when they started the day, with the hot-hitting Suzuki getting a day off, and Sweeney, R maybe (hopefully) just resting his ankle. The Angels’ scored their second run in the second with a runner on third and the A’s infield in, but although Eveland got the ground ball, Crosby threw it away at home (in an interesting fielder’s choice call) to score the run.

The A’s got on the board in the fourth, as Crosby singled, but Emil Brown ruined a perfectly good double (which scored Crosby on the wild throw) by getting himself thrown out trying to take third. In later at-bats, he would fail to score a runner from third with one out, and almost hit into a double play. But he still finished the day better than Cust, who seemed to strike out in every at-bat in this series.

The sixth inning brought temporary happiness for A’s fans, as seldom-played Donnie Murphy worked a 13 pitch walk to lead off the inning, and after Rajai Davis doubled, Mark Ellis singled them both in; Davis seemingly running through a stop sign. Crosby moved Ellis to third with the first out of the inning, but Brown struck out, and failed to score the A's fourth run.

But it wouldn’t matter much. Exactly like last night, the A’s didn’t hold the go-ahead run for longer than ten minutes. After Eveland got the first out of the sixth, Hunter smashed a 3-0 pitch for a double. Eveland got the second out with no movement from the runner, but Geren hooked him after 99 pitches (and he wasn’t happy) in favor of the Foulke/Kotchman match-up. For those of you playing at home, yes, that is the LHP removed for a RHP on a LH batter.

To say that the match-up didn’t quite work would be a slight understatement. Foulke copied the playbook from last night, and not only did the tying run score, but he gave up a two-run homerun (Rivera’s first) to put the Angels up 5-3.

To add insult to injury, the Angels teased the A’s in the seventh, as a botched double-play pulled the A’s within a run. Of course, the A’s offense failed for the second time on the day to get another runner home from third, but the bullpen (this time Casilla/Gaudin) made sure that the game wouldn’t end with a one run loss (Final Score 7-4). I guess that’s something.

Gonzalez, Ellis, and Crosby had pretty good days at the plate, but it’s hard to muster much joy for them, especially when Crosby had to leave the game after hustling out a single in the eighth. I’m sure he’s day-to-day. Wes Bangston made his major league debut, and it was uneventful; he is still looking for his first hit (0-4 on the day). I don’t blame the offense in this series; they did enough to win, and Eveland certainly did his part. You can what-if it to death; the A’s certainly had their chances to score more, but really all of the blame lies with Foulke, much like Embree last night. The A’s had a better-than-average chance at the series win (and possibly a series sweep) had either game got to Street, and it just didn’t happen. And for the life of me, I can’t imagine it hurting more than it does against the Angels. Why the A’s seem to reserve the meltdowns for when it really counts, I’ll never know, but there is a lot of baseball left, and the season is not over.

The A’s need to regroup on the plane, figure out who can be used in the bullpen, and pray for some deep outings by their starters. Right now, I’d use Ziegler in the high-leverage situations, even for two innings, and maybe even regardless of the L/R splits. I'd also figure out if Casilla and Brown are really healthy, if Foulke can be shipped out when Devine returns, and if Travis Buck can possibly replace Emil Brown.

It doesn’t get any easier. The A’s limp into Chicago, home of the blazing-hot White Sox, looking to right the ship a little bit, and stay in the race.

I hope everyone has a happy holiday weekend and that things look better on Monday.

Well, once again, the bullpen ruins a perfectly nice A's 3-2 lead, as Foulke becomes today's goat. But hey, at least the game stayed tied at 3 this time. Oh, no it totally didn't because Foulke did the SAME THING as Embree last night, giving up a two-run homerun to follow the blown save (I won't tell you it was Rivera's first homerun of the year).

But unlike last night, the A's have three innings to get back on the board.

I'm not saying that any single game, or really any series in early July should be make-or-break, but that's kind of the feeling we get during these two A's/Angels match-ups before the All-Star Break, where the A's are either going to shake out to be contenders, or just settle for having a great rebuilding season. I think they have too many missing pieces for a real shot, but stranger things have happened in baseball.

This morning, we are faced with the sad news of Chavez going back on the DL (and who knows for how long), as well as Harden admitting to some sort of 'dead arm'. To top that off, we are trying to win the series in today's rubber game; the one game where I thought the Angels were the clear favorites. I though Smith and Harden stacked up pretty well against their opponents, but as good as Eveland was in his last start, Joe Saunders has been having a pretty fantastic year for the Angels.

After last night's heartbreaker of a loss, which would have secured the series win and pulled the A's to 2 1/2 games behind the division lead, the A's are going to have to show that they can win the series anyway, and stay within shouting distance of the Angels before the All-Star break.

Pitching (both bullpen and starting) is the reason the A's are competing this year, and it will be the key to their success this afternoon. Eveland will look to keep it going today, as the A's try to rebound from last night's loss. New in the lineup today will be Chavez' replacement, Wes Bankston, who will be trying to give the A's some offensive help.

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LET'S GO OAKLAND!!!!

I know that we've discussed this topic at length just two days ago here, but I thought this was worthy of a new thread for two key reasons:

1.)  Two days ago, it was a verbal agreement, which is always tenuous in the Wild West that is Latin American prospect signings, rife with broken promises and questionable information.  As of tonight, it's an actual announcement from the 6-foot-7, 16-year-old Inoa himself that he and the A's have reached an agreement.  Beane and A's director of player personnel Billy Owens have a press conference scheduled for today in Santo Domingo to announce the deal.

2.)  The negotiations got a heck of lot more interesting than they were just two days ago in the last 24 hours.  According to Inoa, the Rangers offered him a $5.2 million signing bonus, and the Reds offered him $5 million and a major-league contract.  (More on that below*).

You can read the ESPN article with a quote from Inoa here, and Mychael Urban has a related article on the team site as well.  Here is a scouting report on Inoa from Kiley McDaniel at saberscouting.com.   

ANALYSIS:

While the A's paid $4.25 million to sign Michel Inoa - nearly double the previous high for an International signee of this type - it's noteworthy that they were actually outbid...and still won.

This was like a high-profile, blue-chipper college football recruiting pitch, and the A's played it perfectly.

Beane and several other front office personnel came out to see Inoa personally several times, developed a personal relationship,  and clearly invested a lot of their time and resources in the Latin American market in this one player.  Unlike many other teams, the A's weren't negotiating with any of the other 5-15 million-dollar international players that will sign today or tomorrow; they made him feel like he was their top choice and only "big ticket" choice through the entire process.  

I doubt Beane gets to play the role of recruiter much, but I'll also bet he was pretty good at it, from what we know about his personality.  

 

*Here's why the Reds' offer of a major-league contract is so significant, and why we as fans should be pleased the A's were able to sign him without one:

With a ML contract, Inoa's team would have to use an option year on him immediately, and he'd have to stick in the major leagues for good by age 20 to avoid being exposed to the 29 other teams.  It's incredibly rare for a 20-year-old to be major-league ready; there are only two in the league right now (Justin Upton and Clayton Kershaw, and both have struggled).  A major-league contract at age 16 would lead to the parent club pushing the prospect far faster than his natural development, and perhaps negatively alter the path of his career as a result.  This is exactly the path that Wily Mo Pena's career has followed after being signed to a major league contract in 1998 at age 16 for a then-record $2.44 million bonus.   

But instead, by signing Inoa to a minor-league contract, they've ensured the best-case scenario in terms of his development.  In five years, he'll have to be Rule 5 protected and added to the 40-man roster, when he is either 20 or 21 years old.   At that point, the A's will have three option years on him, to allow him to acclimate to the big leagues or keep him in Sacramento if he struggles.  But the wonderful thing is, there won't be any pressure for him to stick in the big leagues full-time until he's 24 years old...at which point the A's would have contractual control over him until he reached free agency right around his 30th birthday.  

So, as wierd as this sounds, the A's are about to embark on a relationship with Inoa that could last longer than he's been alive so far.   

 

Last thought on signing 16 year-old International prospects and the Rule 5 draft:

Many commenters in the previous Inoa thread remarked that they'd prefer to spend $500K on eight International signees rather than $4MM on just one. I would argue the opposite and advocate exactly what the A's have done here, for a few important reasons:

a.) A ton of work and relationship-building went into signing Inoa alone. It would be impossible to have the resources to put an effective full-court press on literally every major ($500K and above) prospect (there's around 10-15 of these types per year), just as no one major-college football or basketball team gets ALL the McDonald's All-Americans. Picture the scene in Jerry Maguire when Jerry loses the star quarterback, Cush, because he's showing off Rod Tidwell at a critical moment. Every hour Beane and Owens spend courting one prospect is time that isn't being spent courting someone else (and that guy often eventually signs with a team that devoted their time and energy in him).

b.) Inoa was viewed as a "generational" talent - not just the best in this International class, but the best in years. I suspect the A's have gotten ahead of a curve here, and that the next such "generational" talent - in say, 4 years or so - will cost $10MM or more. Yes, for a 16 year-old. You could say that's lunacy, but people say that with baseball inflation every year. And the reality is, it will still be a hell of lot cheaper for the A's to rub shoulders with the league's richest teams in the Dominican than it will be to out-bid them in FA.

c.) The next eight-best prospects behind Inoa are considered an echelon below him at this point. So, while we're unsure that Inoa will look promising at age 21, we're even less sure that those eight guys will. Can you imagine having to devote EIGHT 40-man roster spots in the 2014 off-season to protecting those guys from the Rule 5 draft??? That's eight Javier Herreras - players with tantalizing upside but far from big-league ready, and potentially they never will be. It's a lose-lose scenario: Either the team leaves a few of those 8 unprotected in the Rule 5, and potentially loses a pretty significant investment of time and money; or, they protect eight Javi Herreras, which has negative ripple effects on the quality and depth of the big league team (which, incidentally, is supposed to pretty deep and pretty darn good in 2013 when those guys would need to be protected).

This was a good year and a good opportunity to go for one big fish rather than diversify.

 

Garret Anderson's 2-run HR capped a three-run 8th inning off of Alan Embree, as the Angels came back to beat the A's. Final Score: Angels 5, A's 3.

There is some irony in the fact that the deciding runs were driven in by a homerun, because Brad Ziegler has never given up one of those. Rich Harden turned over a 2-2 game to Ziegler after 5 innings and Ziegler went 6 up, 6 down through the 6th and 7th, before Mark Ellis' HR off Scot Shields gave the A's a 3-2 lead going into the bottom of the 8th.

But it's not just that the Angels went 1-2-3 in each of the 6th and 7th innings. They didn't get so much as a good swing off of Ziggy in two innings, as he was ahead of hitters, finishing them off easily with strikeouts and weak ground balls. In the 6th and 7th innings combined, Ziggy threw just 24 pitches - 19 strikes. So with the heart of the order coming up in the 8th, you wonder why you would want anyone in there but a guy who had flat-out dominated the hitters far more than Rich Harden could - and that's hard to do.

Embree's not a bad pitcher, folks, no matter how much you may feel, at this moment, like he is. And Bob Geren did what most managers would have done, pulling his reliever after two innings when he had fresh arms available. But I still go back to one observation that, in my view, trumps everything else and makes the three-run 8th that much more bitter a pill to swallow: The Angels just couldn't touch Brad Ziegler. Not even close.

After a scoreless thread, we're 2-2 going to the 8th.

2-2 going to the 4th. Call me paranoid, but I get nervous when Harden is only hitting 90 MPH on the gun with his fastball.

Having scored only two runs since Wednesday, the Angels are probably not thrilled about facing Rich Harden tonight. But while a healthy Harden seemingly owns everyone, historically Ervin Santana has owned the A's to no lesser a degree. Santana is 8-1 with a 1.38 ERA in his career against Oakland.

However...There is a ray of hope. The A's have a lefty-heavy hitting brigade and in 2008 so far, Santana's lefty/righty splits have been dramatic: He is holding right-handed batters to a WHIP of 0.86, compared to a WHIP of 1.32 for lefties.

If you look at which A's have had a particular lack of success again E. Santana, you see right-handed batters Kurt Suzuki (0/9) and Bobby Crosby (1/17), while the only batter with any history of success is lefty Eric Chavez (8/22). So while the red-hot Suzuki still gets the nod over the switch-hitting Rob Bowen, he is one of only three right-handed batters in tonight's lineup, which is thusly and as follows:

R. Sweeney - RF
Suzuki - C
Cust - LF
Chavez - DH
Crosby - SS
Gonzalez - CF
Ellis - 2B
Hannahan - 3B
Barton - 1B

Hoping to find the right formula, Mike Scioscia has Maicer Izturis batting third and has put Vlad in the outfield:

Figgins - 3B
Kotchman - 1B
Izturis - SS
Guerrero - RF
Hunter - CF
Anderson - DH
Matthews - LF
Kendrick - LF
Mathis - C

Today's "fun fact": Ervin Santana began the season by making 7 consecutive "quality starts," but since then he has allowed 3 ER or fewer in only 4 of his 9 starts.

With the dawning of a new month, AN is unveiling a new way of maintaining the basic Community Guidelines for hanging out in “Blez’ living room”. Hopefully, the changes will be for the better in many ways – and not for the worse in any way. To help make it as clear as possible, I have broken the explanation down into three parts: A Basic Explanation, “What Is Changing,” and “What Isn’t Changing”. Lettuce know what you think…

   A Basic Explanation

AN 3.0 has a feature whereby any user can “flag” any comment, categorizing it either as “spam,” “troll,” or “inappropriate,” and writing a short explanatory note to go with the flag. Flagged comments, and their accompanying notes, can only been seen by AN’s “moderators”. Starting today, “flagging” comments will become the official way of reporting suspected Community Guidelines Violations (CGVs).

The regular front-page writers (baseballgirl, Blez, louismg, monkeyball, Nico, notsellingjeans, TajAdib), and two members of the old “Sub-Committee” (gigglingone, McFood), will keep an eye out for CGVs, flagging them for fellow moderators to evaluate. Meanwhile, any user can also flag a comment for the moderators to see and evaluate.

If a moderator flags a comment and two other moderators agree that it is a CGV, a “strike” will be given and the user sent a private email informing them of the “strike”. If a non-moderator flags a comment and two moderators agree that it is a CGV, a “strike” will be given.

   What Is Changing

* To complain about a comment you feel violates the CGs, instead of writing to “cgv@athleticsnation.com” you will flag the comment, mark it as “inappropriate,” and write any accompanying notes about why. (The moderators will take it from there.)

* Instead of a complaint needing three yes votes out of four Sub-committee members, now it will need three yes votes out of a possible nine moderators (only some of whom will see a given complaint in time to evaluate it).

* While the moderators still will not “look for” CGVs, they will be asked to flag any they see, so it will be a slightly more proactive process than before. (This will almost surely cause a spike in “strikes” in the near future.)

* The identities of the “group of trusted users” who are evaluating complaints is now public.

   What Is Not Changing

* The Community Guidelines themselves are not currently changing in any way.

* The system of “warning strikes” and “full strikes” will stay in place (see the CGs for amplification).

* Information about whether or not a CGV was issued will remain strictly between the moderators and the complainee, i.e., if you flag a comment you will not be informed as to the outcome.

* It will still be “3 strikes, yer out!” and a given “strike” will still roll off after four months without a CGV.

* All users, including moderators, will be equally accountable to the CGs and accompanying sanctions. Moderators will be instructed to put any personal feelings aside when judging a comment against the stated CGs, and will be asked to recuse themselves if they feel they may be biased in any way.

   As of midnight this morning, the slate has been wiped clean and everyone gets to have zero “strikes” – even an idiot like you! OK, almost everyone. :-(

The A's rode Greg Smith's second career complete game to victory tonight, 6-1.  They received some timely hits off of Jon Garland to support Smith's stellar effort.  Smith was fantastic tonight, working in a curve ball more often than I have seen him do in his young career.  Perhaps that was something that Curt Young and company scouted ahead about the Angels and their weak offense.  Whatever it was, the A's largely worked the outside corner for most of the night against the Angels.

The A's got most of their offense tonight from their young guns.  The same guys I talked about in my grading post earlier today who have largely struggled.  Daric Barton had two hits, a run and an RBI.  Ryan Sweeney had two hits, a run and an RBI.  Kurt Suzuki had two hits and scored a run.  Carlos Gonzalez had three hits and scored a run.  But probably the biggest blow of the night came from Eric Chavez, who got a huge two-run hit past a diving Casey Kotchman to give Greg Smith the chance to go the complete game because his hit made it 4-1 instead of 2-1.  You just had to figure that Smith would've been coming out of the game at the first sign of trouble if the A's didn't have breathing room.

You have to realize that if the A's are going to remain in the race for the AL West title, they're going to need consistent contributions from their young guns.  So tonight was definitely a good start to the second half for those guys.  It's especially good to see Daric Barton come through tonight.  He's looked pretty lost at the plate lately, so seeing him have a little more success tonight is probably a weight lifted off his very young shoulders.

What was fascinating about watching this game tonight is that the Angels offense is sputtering worse than the A's offense right now.  Outside of the normally hacktastic Erick Aybar, the lineup didn't show much patience against Smith who has often had control issues lately.  Aybar got the only two walks of the game for the Angels.  Still, Smith did what he does best when he is on, working the corners perfectly and inducing lots of flyballs off the end of the bat or off the fists.  Through the first six innings, Angels hitters had seven flyouts to Ryan Sweeney when he was playing right field.  Smith's only mistake of the night was a bomb from the bat of Mike Napoli.

All in all, this is a great win and sets the A's up for the rest of this series.  Even though the A's have Harden going tomorrow, the Angels are putting A's killer Ervin Santana out on the hill, so you have to figure the A's will struggle to score runs.  Santana just owns our A's.  But it's most definitely a nice way to start out the second half of the season.  I always seem to have a bit more bounce in my step and birds sing beautifully whenever the A's beat the Angels.  So I'll cherish this for the next 21 hours or so. 

Thank you, Greg Smith.