At that point, the only A's without a hit were Putnam and Kendall, and he hoped Scutaro would whiff so Iron Drawers wouldn't feel so bad.

sox failed to score ..

Anyone remember last year in interleague?  Arizona came into Oakland during a month when they couldn't win a game to save their life, and swept us.  Even Batista, generally regarded as mediocre if not downright sucky, pitched a very good game against us.  Cy Young pitchers can have stinky outings, and mediocre pitchers like Washburn can have good outings.  The old saying in baseball, "You're only as good as tomorrow's starting pitcher," is very very true.  Let's hope Braden has another good outing tomorrow. :)

I've gotta start building that bunker...

and flied out to the warning track. Hence, no GIDPs for the A's.

for his buck teeth

.. He has very good numbers against Kazmir ..

something tells me Kazmir's licking his chops...

Teams have figured out that the best way to beat the A's is to play rope-a-dope. You put some batting practice pitcher on the mound, let the A's score ten runs or so, and then you beat them the next two games. It worked for Seattle - the A's scored 8 runs against the Geriatrics the day before Opening Day and were shut out the next day. And it worked for the Rangers, obviously.

The reason, of course, is the effect of all that running around the bases on the A's elderly and infirm. The excitement of running the whole way around the bases is too much for Kendall or Piazza or Chavez to take more than once a week, so they spend the day after a blowout resting.

Giving up a big loss seems like a high price, but if it's the first game of a three or four-game series, and guarantees wins in the following games, it's clearly worth it. Tampa Bay is working a variation on the Washington strategy since we play them again next week, after the Red Sox. We'll see how prolonged the results are.

Sounds like Texas! ;-)

But your post is excellent.  I would add that if you plotted the same stats for the A's over the 2nd-half vs. the 1st-half of the season, you'd get some interesting comparisons.  More consistency, less volatility  for the offense - would be my guess.  At least that seems to be the pattern in recent years.  

Hate to utter a cliche but the A's are a 2nd-half team!  Some teams are 1st-half teams - Boston comes to mind, as well as Detroit last year - they seem to get off to a fast start.  But then, last year both Boston and Detroit faded in the 2nd-half.  In fact, Boston had a total meltdown while Detroit was in free fall and hung on to win the wildcard.

Question:  had you rather root for a 1st-half or 2nd-half team?  The former is more enjoyable during the early part of the season, obviously.  The latter requires patience and hope, waiting for that late surge.  BUT, the 1st-half team isn't as much fun rooting for in the late part of the season during crunch time, if they are like Detroit and holding on for dear life to a lead they built up earlier in the season. :)

according to Slusser's article, the A's have scored 30% of their runs in 5 innings.  That, friends, doesn't even qualify as volitile.