non-game-winning home runs.  not a true yankee!

"I'M SO HAPPY THEY DIDN'T BLOW THE WIN FOR HAREN!"

And while the movie that bears the name is horrid, I for one am quite relieved (pun intended) that the starters are faring better than expected and the bullpen struggles. You have to KNOW that Duke and Street will come around. Kiko is Kapable of Kollapse and domination. It's Embree and Witasick that are pedestrian at best and we should never expect more from them. Remember, my boy Go-Dan the Barbarian was projected in that "unbeatable" bullpen and now he is unbeatable in the starting rotation, so there is one less cog in la machine.

I will take dominate starters any day of the week. Geez, if we could only get Loaiza and Harden healthy at the same time, Go-Dan back in the pen....wow, if you are going to dream, go big!

ps...as a bay area fan, never thought I would say this...EVER!...But GO DALLAS!!!

- Embree is simply being overused. Stop pitching him.

- Walking Markakis...Not sure I'm board with that one. Pitch him on your terms and be willing to walk him, sure. Give up when the count's 2-0 and face Tejada? I wouldn't do that again, Bobby.

- Thank you, Corey Patterson, for refusing to score the tying run. As soon as the ball was by Street, Patterson should have been on his way to third, in which case he would have scored easily. Again, thanks.

- Gak.

...in the summary, especially for running back toward second on the single that should have scored him.

In the old days, that mistake would now be referred to as "Patterson's Boner."

This is worth mentioning just because it involves the word "boner."

I said "boner."  

Hehehehe...

Robert Buan well.... (read: improves).

this is why it's nice to occasionally get an extra inning or even an extra out, from the starting pitchers.  
the relief pitchers (or 3-5 of them) are being used too much, and it's starting to backfire.

You mean he gets booed by his own lousy fairweather fans and makes more money than should be humanly possible?

need to be used more, or they need to be replaced with relievers who WILL be used.  
the embree-marshall-calero-duke-street only thing is NOT going to work for 162 games.

I mentioned that as it applies to NRAFs at the end of my DelayPlay diary.  Since you already have Tivo, if you get DelayPlay and get XM (and I love XM, not just for the baseball but also for the music), you will always have a second choice of announcers.  For games in Oakland you can select Ken and Vince; for A's road games you can go with the home team's radio announcers (most of them are OK, just don't do it with a White Sox game in Chicago).

5-0 Tigers after 1.5.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7-0 now still in the top of the second. Weaver gone, responsible for all 7.

even the ones that make me wish for a paper bag to breathe into and cause my heart to pound out of fear.

Good grief, that was a lot of unnecessary drama. As soon as I saw Embree coming out of the bullpen, I thought "three-run homer." I even felt a little nervous when Calero came in the game.

How much do I love Nick Freakin' Swisher! Every time Swish came to bat, some Orioles fan in my section would call him a dirty hippie tell him to cut his hair. That made his two homers even better.

That Putnam kid was OK, too. :-)

That same O's fan booed and heckled Putnam when he found out it was his major league debut. I really don't care if people boo/heckle the A's, but that just seemed low class to me.

And mad props to the A's fans in Section 47 (45? It was somewhere around those parts). If you're reading this and you're at the game tomorrow, keep up the good work!

Second of all, Calero wasn't pitching badly--he was awesome striking out Mora on a truly wicked slider and he is not a guy you want to treat like Bradford ("keep him away from lefties").

Calero may be better against righties but if Geren starts going to Embree/Marshall every time Calero has a lefty up, he's going to regret it. Live and learn; hopefully Geren did.

Vlad just got thrown out going first to third on a hit to center down 5 runs with no outs.

In a profession full of yutzes, he's a mensch. He's got a gorgeous deep baritone voice -- sort of like Ken Korach's but even richer -- but more than that, he's got balls of steel.

I vividly remember an A's-Yankees game broadcast on ESPN in 2004. That was when there was talk about a new stadium in New York, and Yankees ownership and fans were lobbying for City money to build it. Thorne came right out and spoke firmly against it.

I almost fainted when I heard that. Not only was a baseball announcer speaking out against money for baseball on national TV -- but on ESPN, where they kiss Yankee butt at every opportunity.

Fortunately, since it was an A's game, I had the VCR running, and after the game was over I played it back and wrote down his words:

The Yankees want tax dollars. ... I am just adamantly opposed to one single dollar of tax revenue or one single dollar of bond money being used by a municipality to build a damn ballpark for millionaires. I hate it.

... It's a waste of tax dollars, especially in a city like New York that needs it for schools and highways and infrastructures. It's a private business, and it should be run that way.

Balls of steel, man.  Balls of steel.

i don't know if this was mentioned already somewhere in AN but i saw this on the Camden Chat gameday diary:

I think everyone knows about Athletics Nation. Those people are crazy. I mean that in a nice way.

I'm glad Danny Boy got the win. He is amazing! Nails! What kind of putz is Brad Halsey? Purposefully mouthing off to get out of Oakland! BTW I'm sure Garen was saving Dinardo for tomorrow night and Dallas Braden's first major league start, no? Lucky if he goes 4-5 innings, Lenny going the rest. Just mho. GO A'S! Let's hope the usual guys (Embree, Calero, Street) get a rest tomorrow. Maybe Duke will get a chance at redemption and a save!

Nice! Back in first by a game!