A sadly shortened series, a day off for mourning, and somehow we manage to sneak up on the game we've all been waiting for -- the home opener. (Well, the game you've all been waiting for maybe; I'm waiting for the A's to come to Chicago on June 1.) On top of that, we've got Brett Anderson making his first Major League start tonight. The GOG must go on!

The first series at home is a three game weekend set against the Mariners, who are currently tied for 3rd in the division with LAA, after losing a series at Minnesota. For the 2009 season GOG, the overwhelming majority thinks that Seattle will finish this year in last place. But this is a three game series where the Mariners get to start two pitchers named Hernandez and Bedard.

Links

• GOG 2009 #00 -- Read here for a description of what the GOG is all about, how to play, how the scoring works, etc.
• Series preview -- Includes probable starters, and also a lot of fawning over Brett.

GOG #02 :: Home Sweet Home Opener (36 points possible)

Three game series vs SEA -- April 10-12

Update -- answers have been added below, in bold

1. Series outcome [3 points] Seattle sweep
2. Home opener on a Friday night :: Does attendance break 20,000? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] Yes, 36067!
3. Who hits the first A's home run of the season? ("no one" is an acceptable answer, if you think that they still won't have a home run by the end of this series) [3 points] Jack Cust
4. How many Athletics do Felix and Bedard combine to strike out? [3 points] 15 (8 for Felix, 7 for Bedard)
5. Do the A's win any game where they are trailing after 6 innings? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] nope
6. Back in Oakland, finally :: Predict Giambi's Hits/Doubles/HR [2 points each] 2 hits / 0 doubles / 0 home runs
7. How many hits does Griffey get off of left-handed pitching? [3 points] 0 hits against LHP. He was 0-1 with 2 BB vs Anderson and 0-0 with 1 BB vs Blevins.
8. Brett Anderson's debut :: How many innings does he pitch? How many baserunners allowed? [3 points each] 6 innings, 9 baserunners (7 hits, 2 BB)
9. Chavez vs. Chavez :: Who gets more hits, Eric or Endy? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] Endy
10. Beltre, just because :: Predict his H/R/RBI? [2 points each] 2 hits / 2 runs / 0 RBI
11. How many total comments are posted in the AN game threads for Sunday afternoon's game? [3 points] 874 comments, when I checked a little while after the game. I gave credit to anyone who guessed between 824 and 924.

Start your guessing... responses are due before Brett Anderson's first sweet pitch. Also, check the GOG #01 fANpost soon, I'm almost done grading the results.

Results

Well, I'm proud of you all, because not a single person predicted a Seattle sweep. Actually, considering how the series with the Angels went so awry, I'm pretty surprised that this GOG has pretty much the same mean and standard deviation as the last one. Oh wait, there were 6 fewer points possible this time, so I guess that probably explains it.

Overall scoring statistics

• mean = 6.53191 points
• standard deviation = 3.85527 points
• mode = 4 points

via cfcp.uchicago.edu

Your Scores

Ok, this results table is a lot busier than the last one, so here is some description of what the columns mean. Everyone is ranked by how well they did on the most recent GOG (the columns "place this GOG" and "score this GOG"). Next, is "# of GOGs" which should list how many you have participated in. The two columns after that give your rank by total points this season and your total score. Finally, the last two columns are rank by AVG and everyone's AVG, which is defined to be your total points divided by the total of the maximum points possible for every GOG you have participated in. Clear?

A note about the table -- this was spit out by some code that I wrote to parse the graded results and I really don't guarantee it to be bug free. So, if you see something wrong with your score (particularly if you entered into both GOGs but only got credit for one), then let me know.