Bats In The Beltre

Scutaro is an average defensive 2B, a far below average defensive SS, and an atrocious 3B.  Despite his lofty reputation on AN, he has been a pretty poor hitter in all but a couple of months in his career.  I know this is AN heresy, but can't we do better than Scutaro?  A utility IF who can only play one position and can't really hit doesn't really have much utility.

Scutaro is definitely not the biggest weakness on this team, but he is one more weakness on a team that really needs to avoid them.  We just don't have enough stars to make up for players who are below average.  Please make Scutaro go away for 2008.  

hits.  Yep, JK stunk again (what was Geren thinking leaving him in against Beltre?) and Marco had a real bad night at third...but the real culprit is our offense.  We don't have a hitter pitchers fear and we definately have no offensive consistency.  Or in simple terms...our offense blows.

-- Kennedy.  Gawd, he's terrible right now.  I think all of his good luck earlier this season is blowing up in his face.  Still, he's our fifth starter until somebody else emerges, or he continues to pitch this badly.

-- Haren.  Why does everyone want him to start the All Star Game?  Let him pitch his inning in the fourth or something and get out of there.  Haren wasn't going to continue at his ridiculous pace all season long.  The real problem is, as usual, the team couldn't score.

I'm wondering how the A's scratch out a win tomorrow, needing to rely on the bullpen with Harden starting.  It will be mighty tempting to use Gaudin, even though I think he needs the rest.  Blanton should be good on Sunday, but the A's need more than a split if the team is to be anything more than a fringe contender.

I'm not grousing, as my expectations aren't high.  But I still want to hope against hope that the A's can gain some ground and keep me hoping about the playoffs.

Because I really care whether or not detroit or boston gets another potential game at home when they play the mets in 3 months.  really.  I want kenny rogers to get a home start.

Have Scutaro play a very deep third base and let Stewart play a very shallow left field.

thinks that 4 errors in one game is actually Marco Scutaro's average game at third base? If you do, you're completely daft. He's played there in 31 games so far in his career, and while his .931 fielding percentage is quite bad, it's not 4 errors in one game bad. So get the eff over it. He had a bad game. Pokey Reese had 4 errors in one inning and he now has a career fielding percentage of nine-freaking-eighty!

Everyone's entitled to have a bad game every once in a while. Hell, everyone's entitled to have an atrocious game every once in a while, as Mr. Scutaro might be considered to have done tonight.

Alright, second: Get used to Haren giving up a few runs a game. You had to know that it wasn't going to be Pedro Martinez utterly historic for him this season. Who on earth calls 3 ER in 6 1/3 a bad outing. Certainly it's not what we're used to out of him this season, but if you look at how he actually pitched tonight, you'll note that he got away with quite a bit.

He struggles to spot his fastball most of the time, and he hung more than a few sliders and curveballs. He got lucky that only Beltre got one out of the yard tonight. I can't count the number of times (mostly because I've forgotten most of the instances) where he left a ball up and over the plate and Willie Bloomquist or Jose "Freaking" Vidro banged a ball hard and/or deep against him.

--

OK, that was terribly aggressive. But look, these kinds of games are par for the course with a team like ours. They're not going to happen particularly often, but when one fielder has an off night which manifests itself in rather critical situations combined with a pitcher who's not quite spot on and an offense that doesn't have it either, you have to expect what results we got tonight.

If Haren was sharp and Marco rocked the house, then it would have been 3-1 or something close. If the offense had been good and Marco was sparkling, it would have been 5-4. If Haren was sharp and the O were firing on all (most) cylinders, it would have been 4-3. But when they all happen to lack at the same time, you get a disappointing blowout. It's not what you want, but you have to realize that this game was a result of a bunch of things not happening... at the same time.

Drunken rant: out!

i hope Kielty is activated by Sunday. He's been on a tear in AAA and we do need more power in the lineup, particularly from the right side if Washburn is going to start on short rest on Sunday.

Can someone tell me why he is still in the bullpen.  This guy gives up runs every time he goes out there.  Why not send him down and bring up Brad Knox and see what happens.

Apparently the team fell asleep in the third.  Marco had a rough game.  It happens.  The guy has been to good to us in the past to hang him out to dry over last night.  If Chavez isn't out there today, I hope the home crowd gives Marco a hand if Geren trots him back out to third.  He deserves that in my opinion.  No matter how good Danny is, a pitcher is going to need more than one run from his offense most of the time.  As usual, our hitting let us down.  I watched the Yankee's and Angels play before last nights game.  I was struck by the fact that if we had half their offensive production, we would be the class of the AL. So it seemed anyway.

 Beane should trade kennedy while he still has some trade value as a starter.  He is a free agent after this year so goodbye to him.  Lewis does suck and he has to be the worst pitcher in the bullpen the last 5 years.  Why didn't they just keep witasick instead he couldn't do any worse.
 Beltre most have gotten some clear cream from Bonds.  He has had no power then all of a sudden hits the ball out.  Maybe he was snooping around canseco's old locker and found some left overs.  

 Geren should play crosby at third and sutaro at ss.  Scutar is a good ss but third may not be his calling.  I played third and it was alot harder than ss.  The ball comes at you much quicker.  

Any idea how to get there? I'm close to Downtown San Fran....