I guess it's possible that they're both just getting off days, but it seems awfully suspicious. The impulsive side of me hopes to see a brand-new line-up tomorrow after tonight's disgusting affair.

Just to have them dashed when Barton pinch hits in the eighth.

But seriously, the fact that Ginter didn't play tonight--in the only real opportunity thats good for him to do so--makes me think hes not on the ML roster any more. Which frees up a spot.

Melillo, he's not ready. But AAA might beckon. Or it could just be a night off. Its fun to have something to speculate about though after the boring game tonight.

The drums are beating louder and louder.  

If it's both barton and Mellilo, Hatty goes on DL; Ginter gets sent down.

It may be too late, but if this is what I think it is, kudos to Beane for not giving up.

I'm so depressed right now it's not even funny. I'm stuck in an office in New York City and all I want to be doing is headed back to Palo Alto so I can go to A's games down the stretch.

For some reason, this year's offense is completely unable to be consistent -- they are either incredibly good or incredibly bad. I think it's because they're very talented but also either inexperienced (Crosby, Johnson, Swisher) or streaky (Chavez, Kotsay, Payton). And yes, Kotsay is streaky -- he started out last year terrible and then hit .400 for a couple different months; this year, he started out hitting .400 and now he's slumping. Remember, at the beginning of the year, Baseball Prospectus, Hardball Times and all the other statistically-inclined projection systems had the A's offense rated very highly. So the potential is there and over 162 games, the offense should have been above average -- however, the factors listed above have casued the variance to be extremely high as well.

Bottom line, I think a lot of this is psychological as the streaky veterans hit slumps and then the young guys start pressing and get down on themselves when trying to carry the team. Something needs to be done as a quick shake-up to snap the team out of it, and I think Barton and/or Melillo could provide just that.

He just pinch hit and walked -- came around to score a run (what a novel concept!!)

So he's definitely not being called up. Still no sign of Barton, though.

RelaX.

Sac is a possibility A's are not.  

I woudn't say the A's are not a possibility. It's not likely, but it's possible. If he is in fact on his way to Sacramento then I think you can pencil him into next years lineup.

It may or may not be a simple day off. There was no game yesterday so I'm not so sure he'd need a day off. The Hounds faced a lefty, but Jason Perry can't hit lefties at all and he's in the lineup. They needed a pinch hitter and they went with the lesser guy Melillo.

It's either he tweaked something, or he's being promoted to somewhere.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/08/24/ASREPORT.TMP&type=as

"According to Macha, Daric Barton won't be called up from Double-A Midland when rosters expand. He's only 20 and there's too big a gap between Double-A pitching and the big leagues."