Beauty and the Beast

.. Frank Thomas to start hitting.  As I've mentioned several times, fans were calling into Buan's extra innings and suggesting we rename him the "Big Popup" ..

Between these types of starts to a season:

• Decent to good hitting, lousy pitching {starters not lasting, blown saves, pen can't hold a lead, etc}
• Slow hitting, excellent pitching

I would choose the latter.  The former is a harder problem to correct than the latter.  The mighty Yankees seem like they may have the former problem, I'll take the A's problem right now .. That said, I join all A's fans in mourning for our to-date "MIA Offense" ..

Remember Chris Shelton of the Tigers?  {i think} he hit something like 9 bombs during the first 10 or 11 games last year.  The media, starved for news early in the season, sang his song.  Guess where he is now?  Playing in the minors (AAA) ..

Friggin Podsednik is hittin bombs!!

...that we had a "best" player that kills other teams, like Thome and Guerrero have done to us.

.. of of Marshall .. none that I recall ..

What sucks right now is a bland .315 team OBP. The A's would be scoring a lot more runs if they can keep hitting their 2Bs with runners on, and right now the first two batters are giving them an OBP of .206 and .182.

.. about the alcohol-free clubhouse again .. {g} ..

White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen was relishing the rare victory in Oakland, though still frustrated with the A's alcohol-free clubhouse that has been dry since last season.

"We never do that," he said after coming out to the clubhouse to hang with his team. "It's weird to win here the first time in 20 years and not have a beer to celebrate. ... Jose definitely needed one like this."

(link)

While everyone recognizes King Felix Hernandez, John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, and Jose Contreras as being good pitchers -- and those guys did pitch very well against us -- it is also true that Jarrod Washburn, and yes Dustin Moseley and Joe Saunders pitched well.  Except for Miguel Batista in Seattle {whom we hit hard and beat 9-0} -- none of said pitchers have had a "bad outing" nor "bad control".

Does that sound like making excuses for the A's lack of offense?  Yes and no.  You mentioned the lack of walks.  {I think} that is because all the opposing pitchers have had good control thus far and not given us walks.  I remember, I think it was Scoscia and Lackey commenting after a game in Oakland last yr, that the way to beat the A's is to throw quality strikes and force them to put the ball in play.  Scoscia in particular recognizes the A's tendencies.  No doubt that is probably one of the scouting reports on our team, that we like to be patient and make the opposing pitchers work.

We've had our chances but last nite they all came with two outs.  It is hard to have two-out rallies.  Not impossible, but hard, because you have less room for error.  The biggest problem remains the RISP hitting, and I'm thinking these possibilities:

• the A's just suck at RISP hitting and nothing can do about that.
• the A's are just not a good offensive team, period.
• the A's always start slow {offensively}, we just gotta be patient as fans, they will come around, especially as the weather warms up.
• there is a random element of "luck" to RISP hitting and the A's have had little success but it will even itself out.

I suspect it is a combo of the last two above: the A's inevitable slow starts out of the gate, and the fact that {with exception of the 9-0 pounding of Batista} they have yet to "break out".  Point#2 above also holds some truth:  the A's are not Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Boston -- we don't have a bunch of big boppers and aren't going to score a ton of runs .. But I still like the fact that, even with Loaiza hurt and out of the rotation right now, our pitching has held its own, and the bullpen has been outstanding.  Cupcakes got his first 'W' against the Halos, that was a plus.

Getting back to my first post in this thread, I still like our problem compared to what seems to be the mighty yankees' problem -- the yanks' pitching looks really weak, and even with that all-star lineup, over a long long season that is a recipe for not making the playoffs after 60 million years, hehe - now, no doubt they will spend 100 gazillion dollars by July and rectify their deficiencies, I could care less about the yankees - but still would rather have the problem we have right now, of a slow starting offense but {so far} excellent pitching.

sorry to say. The A's haven't had a high OBP offense in years. 11th in OBP and 11th in SLG is about par for the course I think. Maybe last year got a little better, I might check later if I have time.

The rest of the guys arent doing that bad cahvy is hitting over 300 piazza is going off Kendall on the other hand not doing so well this is really where the A's miss Kotsay.

they only thing I dont like is walker leading off, he cant do any worse though so why not give it a try.  I would like to see Ellis lead off myself and have kendall in ninth

Bobby Crosby, bless his fragile little heart, is a natural lead-off man, especially given his improved hitting approach this year. He can steal bases and hit with some authority (especially compared to Kendall)

I don't think Piazza is a clean-up hitter at this stage of his career. He's got good plate discipline and rarely strikes out so I'd actually bat him second.

The A's natural clean-up man is Swish, because he hit 35 home runs last year and he's wasted anywhere else. I'd surround him with Chavez and Milton, in no particular order.

Travis Buck/Bobby Kielty platooned should bat 6th, and that brings us to 7-8-9. These slots go in order of BA in my book.

Re: the Walker/Stewart controversy, these guys are both career .300 hitters, so pick 'em. Stewart has defensive skill, so that's why he gets more starts.

To a fan, it looks easy:

.. ducks on a pond, man on 2nd and 3rd, no outs {or only one out} ..

.. OMG ellis struck out, swisher lined out to left, inning over, .. these turkeys just cannot drive in those runs !!!

Fact is, fans forget that the opposing pitcher (and defense behind him} views it differently, - instead of a "juicy opportunity" for our offense to score, to him it is a "threat" ..

He is thinking - if ellis beats me, it will be on a pitcher's pitch, my splitter diving down on the outside corner; I will keep swisher off-balance because he has power; etc.

Opposing defense has all the "scout sheets" about who hits where; opposing coaches and manager makes sure they line up optimal defense; etc.

.. Of course I never played major league baseball but I have no doubt it's a lot harder than it looks to a fan .. to a fan it looks like we can easily get those runs in, to a player, NOT ..

I agree with being aggressive on a first pitch if it is a juicy one.  Van Burkleo (sp?) the A's new hitting coach said the same thing when interviewed by Fosse on pregame .. but .. I noticed in yesterday's open-game thread, some were criticizing Nick Swisher for swinging at a 2-0 count and lining out to left with RISP {i think it was, runners at 2nd and 3rd}.  BUT, if he had ripped a double in the gap, scoring both runs, there would have been no criticism - I can just see fans commenting, "MAN he got his pitch and didn't miss!"  I'm of the notion that it isn't easy to hit at the MLB level, it isn't easy to succeed, and as Macha always said, it isn't easy to win a major league game {no matter what you do or don't do}.  Maybe today will be different, although Garland when "on" is no picnic either.  The Sox traded Garcia but they still have some pretty good starting pitching.

not a good bet for better OBP and OPS than stewart?

I would like to see him leadoff, as posted below.