Whhhyyyyyy???

Oh well, let’s get ‘em tomorrow.

Dur Uh Dur Uh Dur…Be-uh-cause-uh Alan is our uh 8th inning uh guy…

and thrown 2 innings. And he is not good against left handed hitters. No sane manager would send him out there to start the inning. Foulke/Brown/Casilla are all ?s at this point, and there was a lefty and a switch hitter coming up. I would have been WAY WAY more pissed to see Foulke or Brown against Vlad than Embree. Embree can at least control his fastball off the plate against Vlad, which he did.

Geren’s worst decision was playing the infield in yet again, which cost us the the game.

And, like you said, what most managers would have done. Since Ziggy was untouchable, why not let him pitch the 8th until the Angels started getting a bead on him? I guess that’s just too unconventional for Bob, though.

The Big Hurt, too!

Do modern day managers rely on them too heavily, leading to endless pitching changes and the accompanying game delays? Yes.

But the fact is, the platoon split exists.

So when Geren has already decided to pull Zig, and he looks down that lineup card and sees Kotchman, Izturis, Guerrero, and Hunter, why doesn’t he have both a right- and left-hander warming up in a 1-run game? Even if he was hoping Embree goes 1-2-3, as soon as Kotchman gets on, why didn’t he get any right-handers warming up, whether it was to pitch to Vlad with 1 out or walk Vlad and go for the double play with Hunter?

Yes, the righties in the bullpen have done their fair share of blowing late leads, too. But why hamstring Embree by making him face guys who traditionally feast on left-handers? Why not use the platoon split to his advantage, whatever small advantage it provides?

To me, that’s mismanagement. Pure and simple. Especially in light of the fact that the A’s were playing against the division leader and going for the series win. I don’t think it’s enough to call for the guy’s job, obviously, but this loss is on him.

And for the record, I would have preferred Casilla.

But it’s one game, and there were limited options. Maybe Ziggy pitching one more inning with Casilla coming in shortly after would have been better, but who knows. Embree could also get Vlad out on a weak ground ball or a strike out, which he will probably do tomorrow. 2 out of 3 in Anaheim would be pretty good. And at least Santana didn’t get the win. I don’t like him, too greasy.

Mr. Athletic puts them up a run with a bomb in the 8th and Geren/Embree immediately unravel with the entire fan base expecting it. Momentum and a game in the standings go poof in the wind. If they lose tomorrow it makes it that much worse.

We have to win tomorrow, were going into Chicago where there playing unreal ball

He had bad numbers in minors against lefties. The arm slot is a disaster against lefties. Chad Bradford etc. never did well against lefties. He had already pitched two innings, and thrown the three previous nights. 0/30 managers would send him out again against 2 lefties to start off the inning with a one run lead.

With Ziggy, Smith, Eveland, Gonzalez, Sweeney all a year older and a little bit of experience…look out!

if we lost today and Harden’s ok, we’re still in the hunt. Win or lose, if Harden’s lower velocity was a bad sign, we’re done. So…let’s hope it was just “one of those days” without the “best stuff” and nothing more.

Horrible night: A’s and Cubs lose, Giants and Angels win

Harden had 91 pitches through 5 innings. He had to come out. When is Gaudin going to be used? I thought Ziegler was capable of 3 innings, but that is unconventional for a reliever (which is stupid logic, IMO – why “SAVE” relievers? You don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow so play for the win today).

But why not Gaudin in the 6th? And if he was dominate like Ziegler, for the 7th? Than Ziegler could have pitched the 8th inning, or the 7th & 8th.

I don’t trust Street with a one run lead in the 9th, but he’s the closer, and he would have had the 9th.

What i don’t understand is, you have young, talented relievers in Gaudin, Ziegler, Brown, Casilla, Devine and they continually get bypassed for Foulke, Embree. For instance, if Harden would have thrown 7 innings, it would have been Embree in the 8th. The team to me is rebuilding offensively, I think we should rebuild in the bullpen as well. These young guys need important innings, like the innings tonight, to learn with.

I posted two days ago how I felt about Foulke/Embree, and I think they are doing the same thing Emil Brown is doing: taking valuable innings away from young players.

Often times, young pitching comes in without a track record and they can give a team fits for awhile. The Angels have minimal to no exposure against Ziegler and look at the results.

Every Angels hitter has faced Embree a billion times – they know he’s coming with a belt high 92-95MPH fastball 90% of the time, and a 86-89 MPH slider 10% of the time.

I also disagree that Embree is the right matchup against Anderson. It holds true usually that a LH hitter has trouble against a LH reliever, but in this case, it does NOT hold true. Anderson is a career .297 hitter against righties.

Against lefties? .290. And he homers against righties every 28 at bats, every 33 against lefties.

He isn’t some kid coming from the minors that swings a power lefty bat. He’s had 2,346 AB in his career against lefties, I don’t think it matters that much against him at this point in his career.

Also, as a left hander myself, what the hell were we doing inside? We love inside pitches, and inside pitches from a lefty we merely turn and react on. The less mental you are at the plate, the better, it’s all about reacting. Lefties facing lefties have to trust their reaction as it feels the ball is on you a lot quicker and it feels like it’s in tight. For this reason, many lefties “cheat” and open up. Left handed pitchers should tease inside but live outside on lefties. The ball is traveling away from the left handed hitter naturally, anyways, so an inside pitch is traveling towards the plate.

The pitch to Anderson was supposed to be an inside fastball, which it was, but Anderson simply reacted, and the ball was running towards the plate. The result? A very unfortunate BOMB.

Everyone’s talking about Embree, and rightfully so. I was there tonight, and I in no way felt good with Embree coming in with a one run lead.

However, there was another thing that Geren did that ended up being meaningless but could have been disastrous. It’s something Geren’s been doing all season. In the 8th, he pulled Cust for Davis, and not when Cust was on base or something. The idea is to improve defense with a one run lead late, but once the game was tied, I started getting worried that Davis would be the 4th man up in the 9th, in Cust’s spot. Why take Cust out for an inferior hitter when the game was far from decided? We might well have needed Cust’s bat in the 9th or later. Why do it?

sold his soul for nothing

he needs a refund

The outcome of this game really sucked but I had a really fun time anyway. Got new pictures with Rich Harden after the game which was fun. He is the most adorable boy on the face of the planet I’m pretty sure. I just want to hug him!

I doubt they can send Ziggy down when Devine comes back

At this point, maybe they might consider trading Street and making Ziggy the closer