Don't Be Negative. {breathe} Don't Be Negative.

Better star hitting soon or this could get ugly fast.

I don’t think Gallagher and Gio are your answer.

why the Angles are down right now….Top of the order isn’t working – period. Buck should be playing and O Cab isn’t a 2 hole hitter
1. Ellis
2. Cust
3. Holliday
4. Giambi
5. O Cab
6. R. Sweeney
7. K. Suzuki
8. E. Chavez (I have almost lost all patience with this guy)
9. T. Buck

I liked seeing O CAB put down a bunt in the 1st, but not on a 3-1 count. Start playing smart/small ball

-Bunting in the 1st inning is stupid, whether it’s Cabrera or Geren making the call.

-Pulling the infield in during the 2nd inning is stupid.

-Using Andrew Bailey in the 5th inning is stupid. He made one bad pitch but he’s been absolutely filthy all season.

but shipped away Jeremy Giambi, brought in (forget his name, from the Phillies), and made other changes at the beginning of May?

And I tend to agree with you, Nico. I mean, Braden doesn’t have the best stuff, but dude knows how to work the zone and throw strikes when he needs to.

Eveland just never seems like he’s confident that he can ever throw a strike again. Ever.

There is something the A’s don’t like about Gallagher. I’m not sure what it is, but you can just tell.

But ultimately the offense needs to come around. You might expect that Holliday might struggle a little out of the gate given that he’s coming to a new league, but Giambi, Chavez and Cabrera need to hit better than they have or the A’s will be looking to trade Holliday at the deadline faster than you can say “it’s July already?” Course this was a staple of the Giambi-era A’s if you remember. Always sputter out of the gate then go on an incredible tear. I’m just not sure the starting pitching will hold up to help them go on that tear, so they need to get in gear now.

I will say, damn it looked cold there today. I still think they should shorten the baseball season and start in later April to prevent the teams playing in cold weather and all the early season rainouts.

I think the best change they can make is the manager

The only positive from this atrocious start offensively is that it provides an impetus for Bob Geren to do some lineup joggling. So, let’s hope that he does, then the offense gets hot, and, voila, the lineup will never go back it’s current incarnation. If, on the other hand, the hitters start to heat up before a change is made, we might be stuck with this sub-optimal lineup for some time.

As for Eveland, I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel yet. Though, I confess, I have a certain bias toward pitchers with excellent minor league track records, and have always been a bit slow to acknowledge that they may not be as good as their minor league numbers would lead one to believe (I might be the only person still clinging to the Yusmerio Petit bandwagon). I think if he can induce enough grounders, then he’ll still be a solid 4/5 guy despite the command issues. Problem: We need him to be an anchor in the rotation right now.

Are we to conclude from Outman’s relief appearance that Gallagher will be taking his spot in the rotation?

Let’s not have our premier slugger – whether its Holliday or someone else – work out with Crosby. Crosby clearly wears off on these guys.

Other than that, I’m like nico. frustrated, annoyed, but not really worried. This team has three ways to succeed:

1) get lucky (this strategy is not panning out)

2) develop young players (there could be more of this soon)

3) make good trades at the deadline

Hopefully they start working on #2 before they have to switch to #3.

two something weeks of torture without a computer and I come back to this?!??!!

and surreal un-Ellis-like mistakes

my computer died, haven’t been able to even follow the A’s or anything until now. (library computers wouldn’t work, my TV cable is being worked on… REALLY technologically deprived for a little while.) What in the world have I missed?!??!!?
UGH. this is NOT what I was hoping to come back to.

valuable pitcher last year, and an above average starter for the league — 2.7 WAR. Major league pitching isn’t mainly about command. If it were, Yusmeiro Petit and Carlos Silva would be all-stars. Hint: they’re not.

Eveland is going to pitch 180-190 innings, which he’s the best bet of anybody on the team to do, and put up an ERA of around league average. If that’s your fifth starter, you’ve got a league leading rotation.

A pitcher with lesser command is more frustrating to watch than a guy who throws it over and gets hit hard. They’re still sometimes better. Get used to it.

But I’m not an advocate of him ever starting a baseball game, which Geren seems to be determined to allow him to do.

tonight Jake Peavey gave up the only grand slam homer in his career — and he gave it up in ATT Park to Edgar Renteria…

Ah well.

Billy don’t like him, so he’s gonna sit, even if he is obviously better than his competition against lefties.

but your not goign to win games when your last in every offense categories, It just has to get better from where it is now. We have to C.C tomorrow which we have a real good track record verus him and this is a game i could see is scoring a ton

He has no World Series Titles or Appearances and has won 1 playoff series as the A’s GM. I know he he has no money to work with and I still think he is a good GM. He has made a lot of mistakes. Such as not signing Dye, signing Chavy and trading Swisher, not to mention some of the bottom of the barrel Offenses he has trotted out there. I am just getting really tired of mediocrity, I think A’s fans deserve much better. IMO A’s fans are some of the most knowledgeable loyal fans in the league.

Now, if the A’s could just switch over to the Pacific Coast League, we wouldn’t be having all these soul-crushing offense-free defeats. We might even finish above .500!

1. Using him in the fifth and sixth was not that terrible of an idea. I believe it was raining at this point—I was watching the Yankees broadcast and they said it was coming down. In this case, you don’t use your long man because if it gets rained out, you essentially gave up on it. Long men suck, or else they would be starters. You try to stop the bleeding there and give Holliday/Cust/Giambi/Chavez a chance to actually do something.

2. I don’t really advocate stretching Bailey out—at least not right now. Stretching him out would require time in the minors—also, he did that and he wasn’t very good, although that was pre-cutter. However, if you do move him to a long role, his cutter isn’t 98 MPH anymore. All I have seen him throw so far is a cutter and a curve (though I could be mistaken, I’m sure he throws a 4-seam), and those are by far his two best pitches. Two pitch starters not named Rich Harden usually aren’t that good, and I wouldn’t put his cutter/curve on the same tier as Hardens fast/change.

3. Stretching Bailey out, like I said, would require time in the minors, leaving the A’s bullpen with essentially Springer, Casilla, Ziegler and Wuertz. Casilla’s been a little shaky while Gallagher’s sucked and Giese isn’t very good—and the rotation hasn’t been consistent either. So now you’ve got a rotation that’ll likely give you 4 or 5 or 6 decent innings and you’ve got four relievers you have to use day in and day out to keep you in ball games. You could pull it off for a little while, but eventually your bullpen is going to hit a wall and that’s the last thing you need for a team’s confidence.

-The gallagher thing is mind blowing but more so in regards to the fact of bullpen misuse overall…I dont like outman in the rotation at all so i agree stick gallagher in the rotation, use him or send him down

-Travis Buck should be playing more period…especially with Nomar hurt, this ties in to misuse of Rajai in my opinion, look I love Raj if it is a late inning defensive replacement for Cust or baserunning purposes late in games and maybe the once every 10 days start him. Small doses, I dont think there is anything to suggest Rajai should be playing this much or more than Buck for that matter.

-The Suzuki thing over chavez I disagree cuz if Nomar is healthy i think we should avoid using Chavez much at all against lefties, he just doesnt seem to have a good approach against them at all, and with Nomar in the lineup i think you can put Nomar above Suzuki…I did like Suzuki’s game though and honestly as soon as they made all these moves he is kind of the guy I expected to benefit the most offensively.

_ I am not sold on Cust batting second but if we are gonna bunt with 2 out in the ninth I will take anyone except the guy we sent to the plate…and if you are gonna bunt please get it on the ground, geez. Tough closer though so I am not gonna use that example to completely prove the fail of that one two combo. I am all for hitting Cust 5th with Chavez or Nomar behind him depending on a lefty or righty pitching.

Overall I am not really too concerned with the position of the A’s right now, we could easily have been in a position to win this game and numerous other losses right now. The a’s have had some bad breaks going against them early this season. I feel like a few different bounces here or there the A’s could be staring a three or four game over .500 record but in baseball you have these stretches.

On another note I read something saying that Holliday has just not felt comfrotable at the plate, he said he was thinking too much and it also mentioned that he is traditionally a slow starter as well with april being the month he has hit the fewest homers over his career. As for speculation he doesnt seem into it, I think that is his personality to an extent kinda laid back…and i agree with anybody that says how do you know what it seems like when he is into it and also when a guy isnt hitting up to their standards they are not happy campers usually and could affect overall mood.

My thoughts are let’s go A’s and we should all be pumped that our team hasnt played well and has had chances to win most of the games and some bad bounces and some bonehead moves(coaches and players alike) have cost them…Few small tweaks and everyone on here wont be so down in the dumps…Patience, in a month I think we will all be pumped about the way our team is playing and probably looking at our best pitchers return to the rotation

Guys were only 13 games in we all need to take a breath here. Is Geren a good manager? I’m not sure but I’m willing to give him a little more time to find out. This team has some talented parts but there are a lot of question marks and it’s probably going to take 2-3 months for everything to sort out.

My biggest concern isn’t a original one, like a lot of people I wonder if by the time this young pitching comes around if the big bats will still be on the team. I’m still going to preach for a little patience but I know it’s hard to do after the last couple of seasons and the fact that the clock is ticking on Holliday. Let’s hope for the best.

i lived in new york for 7 years and mariano destroys left handed batters. ok, he demolishes righties and lefties, but he’s especially tough on lefties. that was just a mistake that’s not supported by the numbers.