let’s take one tommorrow

g’night

Yeah, so, I hope the game isn’t blacked out tomorrow since it’s not on Comcast SportsNet California. DirecTV channel 699 is carrying the game and it’ll probably be somewhere on the free preview channels.

-nomar should not be playing so much, he is a backup infielder
-switch cust and o-cab around in the lineup, damnit
-casilla or andrew bailey should be closing so ziggy can be used elsewhere

i’m not worried about the offense, the weather will heat up eventually and there will be plenty of extra base hits.
the bullpen is as great as expected and the starting pitchers are performing well enough.

I’m gonna call him A-Dawg, cause he looks like a bloodhound with those droopy eyes. He is the most nonplussed looking dude I’ve seen. Awesome, as Ray would say.

He really just had that one mistake he grooved to Betancourt. Other than walking Jr. 3 times I don’t have much criticism. Delivery was smooth. Nice movement on the off speed stuff. Didn’t give in. Kept his composure during that 2nd inning. I mean honestly he looked like he took a fat bong hit.

Good luck, and hopefully the rest of this series will be less painful to watch for both sides.

It wasn’t the LOBs, it was THE WAVE.

Please, please, please AN, don’t ever participate in this travesty at the Coliseum.

I always prefer a bunch of stranded runners over not getting on base in the first place.

Also, good to do this at the start of the series, because now several of the M’s middle relievers are unavailable. If we can get to Hernandez and Bedard maybe we’ll get to see the low end of their bullpen.

and full of potential. This is going to be a fun year.

lots of good fan energy…I had some trouble at first finding the AN tailgate, since there were so many tailgate parties in Lot A!!! I felt a little foolish going to each one asking “is this the Athletics Nation tailgate?” and getting some weird stares…luckily I finally found it…

full crowd, moving pregame ceremony, lots of excitement to see the 2009 A’s — and then, how many times did the A’s leave the bases loaded?….uhhhh…Sweeney and Cabrera for the most part did their jobs, they got on base. I’m hoping Giambi’s bat hasn’t begun to slow down from age — if so he shouldn’t be hitting third. Cust and Holliday had some nice warning track shots which were unfortunately outs. Blevins had a short and uninspiring outing but fortunately did no damage.

In fact, it wouldn’t have been this close a game had the Mariners not made some errors throwing to first base.

I’ll be at the game tomorrow…and so will Felix Hernandez…

Yes the LOBs were frustrating but pretty much every single inning was exciting, so I’m not going to complain too much.

Seemed like a LOT of our flyballs died tonight. Cust hit two balls that I felt would be out during the day or at least later in the season. I kept saying to my friend that once the first homer is hit everything else will fall into place and we’ll have a 10+ run game very soon. The offense is very close to firing on all cylinders.

I had to park over at an office building past the overflow parking and walk all the way to the entrance, AND I got the privilage of paying $15 to do so. What a frickin joke. How can they charge you to park so frickin far away? Do you think they have to “rent” the office parking, is it really that expensive? Couldn’t they at least charge $10? Whoever forgot to check about conflicting A’s and Warriors games should be suspended or fined.

So after walking forever we finally get in and get some food before settling into our seats. I barely had time to take a bite of my hot dog and the A’s were down 5-1, booo. I saw the “lowlights” of the 2nd inning on Sportsnet Central and I can’t help but think “if only Ellis was a half step shaded up the middle on the single up the middle that deflected off his glove” or “If only Holliday was a little faster or set up deeper in left”? They are right when they saw baseball is a game of inches.

I was in section 128 and the fans around me seemed energetic and loud. Everyone was aching for the bases loaded hit or that first home run. Any fly ball hit past the infield brought a yeah! . . . aaawwwwwwwww.

I found that they have raised the price of round table pizza to $7 now (whoever “they” is, maybe RT itself) don’t they know about the recession? I also discovered the Round Table guy didn’t have very good hearing. He was only one section away and he couldn’t hear me scream “PiZZA, PPPIIZZZAAA, ROUND TABLLLEEEEE!!!!” like I was dying. I’m not exactly a quiet guy either (I’m sure the fans around me could testify to that).

The game was exciting but frustrating, my highlight being the awesome Ellis leaping grab in the 9th (that was my wife’s highlight too because she was annoyed with my Dad complained that Ellis couldn’t get to the base hit earlier in the inning). When the game ended I didn’t exactly jump and run for the exit and we did stop for a potty break but it still took an hour for us to walk back to the car and get back on the freeway. After a little bit of traffic in Oakland we made it back home in a very quick 45 mins (thanks to Maroon 5).

I’d also like to give a shout-out for Comcast’s new sports programming. Sportsnet Central and Chronicle Live with Greg Pappa. Both shows are one CSNBA and CSNCA a couple times a night (times seem to vary depending on the games being shown) and they focus mostly on Bay Area sports. Sportsnet Central is your basic 1/2 hour sports highlight show but obviously with the focus on the Bay Area they have plenty of time to equally cover all the teams. They start off with the higlights and recaps from all the games but most of the time they go back and go a little more in-depth with the A’s and Giants. Chronicle live is taped sometime in the late afternoon and it is an hour long so it goes into a lot of topics and interviews and not a bunch of game recaps. Greg Pappa hosts and usualy has two Bay Area sportswriters with him. He seems to lean a little to the Giants since he works for them and it is an SF show but he has worked for the A’s and gives them a fair shake. They have already interviewed Jason Giambi, Lew Wolff, and Brad Zigler (video clips at the website) and it is kind of different to hear people who aren’t homers for the A’s talk about them. The Wolff interview was interesting and they had some good discusions about the stadium issue after the interview. My neighbor works on both shows behind the scenes and has been telling me about all the A’s coverage, I suggest checking it out A’s fans.

Something that seemed to get little attention, both on the broadcast and here, may have decided the game because it flat out directly cost the A’s a run: What the heck happened to Mark Ellis, not going back to tag on Holliday’s fly ball (with the bases loaded)?

It was near the M’s bullpen, maybe fair maybe foul, chased by Griffey running hard to his left. If it’s caught fair, Ellis wants to tag and score. If it’s caught foul, Ellis wants to tag and score. If it drops fair, Ellis can walk home no matter where he is. If it drops foul, it doesn’t matter.

It’s not like Ellis to make a blunder like that and I have no idea what he and Gallego were thinking. This was not a shallow fly ball. Anyone have any insights on this?

This worried me before the game started and proved to be an issue when Chavez popped up with 1st/3rd one out followed by a Nomar “sac fly”. The lineup literally went L/R from 1-8, suggesting that’s why Geren chose to put Chavez 5th and Nomar 6th rather than the other way around.

There is no team it matters less with than the Mariners, Bob, because they don’t have a single left-handed pitcher in the bullpen. His lineups are killing me – I’ve liked everything else about his managing, but the lineups have been terrible.

Anderson looks like the real deal already, ERA be damned.

Tailgate was awesome. Good to meet new faces and see some again. Sorry I forgot the goat, Nico :-(

Thanks again to lynnzgal for organizing, to everyone for bringing stuff. We must do it again soon! I had to skip the actual game….I think I was just too tired, or maybe it was something I ate (Saint and Lynn will remember what that might have been!) but got home in time to miss the bad inning and see the rest of Anderson’s impressive debut. While it was very frustrating to have so many hits wasted and so many guys left on base, it was an exciting game, and I think this is going to be a great team to watch. Not going to the ballpark until Wednesday but I wish it were sooner!

I know it’s trivial, but I want to know.
So I’m always up for some change. Loops, jumps, right hand turns. But not being able to see the entire race track at one time really sucks. Or at least I thought so.
Also I’m glad to see that “trumpet time” go away, even though it didn’t go away completely.

Great time overall. The weather for the tailgate was perfect, and it was great to put some faces with names. That was a good write-up BBG. Once again a frustrating amount of LOB, but as was pointed out, it’s better that not even being able to get someone on. Even with OC hitting well last night I still don’t see why JC is batting 7th. Brett Anderson looked great overall, we could be onto something with this guy! I am hoping with the warmer day games someones going to break out today, sadly they will also face tougher pitching. I was glad I brought so much clothing, as it got a bit chilly. I was in 123 with Dogfather in front and sslinger to the left AND a HUGE moth creature buzzing around, damn locust or something. I had never seen that guy with green jacket before (guy buys a seat for his giant Stomper as well…) And now we get “in-game” reporters and contests like in AAA, I guess I will find out if she is at every game. I still have a ton of Dogs and Links so lets do it again! Well, better get ready I am off to game 2. Hey Coliseum! whats with only 1 exit gate open!

Let’s Go Oakland!