and a hit...

and the Angels score a run...

In with 2 on base. Shades of Grady Little? :-/

this year?  Is there something in his contract that says he is the one to go to whenever there's a call to the pen?

That was strike three, Mr. umpire.

then any of our scrubs in the pen... =/

Ron Washington pulled up with a hamstring injury while running out to protest a call.

He claims he won't go on the DL.

...is GameDay blowing smoke or did Ken Doll get both our RBIs this game?

Has hell frozen over?

How about this thread? Home run Cust!!!

What's that? I'm needed in the bullpen? I have the ninth?

I forgot all about that guy.

Yeah CUST!!!!

Zonis's "Cust Again" was posted about twenty seconds before the HR pitch on mlb.tv.

I was hopin' that's what he meant!

"Awwww... he's so cute!" re: Cust. "Look at those thighs!"

I'm quoting. :-/

Blanton gets the win!

curve, but his eye is so good, he won't swing at a bad curve, and eventually a pitcher will have to throw a fastball, unless they are very good.

on the outcome of this one!

Huston will come in and close it out.  What's that?  Ok, time for Duke.  Huh?  Bring in Kiko. He's what?

I hear Rincon is available.

THIS GUY IS GREAT!!!! PIAZZA WHO???

HOLY CUST!!!

This might start to suck really quickly.

Bullpen, try anything, I'll keeeeeal you.

After a week and a half.

goods add on mlbtv.....irritating.  especially the boston boys and the yankee dude.....ilk.

Instead, some incredibly strange set of desk tschochkes.

Who comes up with the mlb.tv 'tween inning images?

let's pray

I'm going to drift off to the sounds of a 1-2-3 inning and a win.

One Down Two To Go

c'mon KiKoKa

to nibbling

<EOM>

0-2, then four straight balls.

arrggggg!!!! KIKO!!!!!!!!!

So either he's gonna get out right now or he's due

Ball 1 was a strike. Oh well.

(and note that Cust is out of the game now)

I nominate the new guy for Closer.. He can't be worse

F^$K!

Why didn't we just put in Robertson.  At least he would have an excuse to blow the game.  Poor Cupcakes

Why couldn't we have thrown cupcakes out there again this inning.

Zombie Billy Martin would know what to do with this pen: don't use it!

0-2 on German - walk

0-2 on Buck - double in the gap

FARGH!

with ANY luck this game would be over (and we would win) in a reasonable enough amount of time that I could watch the last 10 minutes of American Idol in peace...of COURSE not.

damn it

Kendall: You know we both really suck at this point.

Calero: Word.

We traded a live, MLB-ready arm like Marcus McBeth for a fourth outfielder we can't use until next year.

And there's the go ahead run for KC.

2-2 on Shealy - single up the middle.

a's down 4-3.

you gotta be kidding me.

...what would greendatitiz suggest we do?

*punches wall*

Shealy put a good swing on it.  (The pitch to Buck, on the other hand...)

They didn't want to use a "closer" because he might blow it???

Oh! Good thinking!

about W's as the most important stat for pitchers by taking one one away from Joe B.

This is gonna go great.

F with DeJesus

if love, sweet love.... It's the only thing that there's just too little of... well, that and reliable pitchers and hits with RISP.

makes me want to throw my computer through the window

"Come to Oakland, we'll beat your closer"
as an A's trademark???

should be
"Come to Oakland, you can beat our (lack of) closer".

Oh yeah, Street.

The bottom of the 9th will feature the following A's mashers:

1. Scutaro

2. Bocachica

3. Kendall

Kendall just needs a triple and a home run to hit for the cycle tonight.

I just saved a bunch of time with auto-refresh.

Well, it's new to me.

............................

DINARDO! WHO IS THE ONLY PITCHER IN THE PEN WHO HAS GOTTEN AN OUT!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

and here comes Chavvy.

Predictions?

Guess Bradley really is feeling terrible, and couldn't go in the field at all if it came to it.

A's lose. Cust wonders if he joined the wrong team.

Why are you swinging at that, Chavvy?

KC E-4.

:P~~~

big fat tie-dyed piece of sh*t.  He and Cocknell are not qualified to be ushers at these games.  They should both have to travel to India at their own expense so the yogis can piss on their heads.  Their mockery and dismissal of alternative treatments and regimens out of hand, especially those from foreign lands (even as they watched Zito do a strict yoga-based program and never miss a start in 7 years) smacks of a particularly elitist strain of racism to me.  Further, I repeat my assertion, made countless times, that having a mordantly overweight trainer is like having a crackhead as your personal financial advisor.  These clowns, about as qualified to be conditioning staff in the 21st century as I am to drive in NASCAR, are in no small way responsible for losses like this due to their complete lack of effective oversight of our players' (in this case our bullpen pitchers') health.

If these utterly intransigent morons aren't dismissed soon we will quickly be residing in last place.  Anyone who defends them in any respect is either friends with them or categorically insane.  The only thing more stunning than the fact that these f*ckwads are still employed even as their work becomes more and more awful and ineffective is that this team, so progressive and cutting edge in so many realms of franchise management and strategy, continues to employ trainers and conditioning staff whose attitudes and preferences seem to date back to the time just before the game of baseball was ever invented, i.e. sometime in the mid-19th century.  

That is all.

Blake survives..