Heading into today's game, the Athletics record against the Texas Rangers sits an even 6-6. This three game set, plus a four game series next week in Oakland, will make the difference between having to acknowledge that the Rangers were just a flat out better team than Oakland this year, or being able to cling to a winning head-to-head record. On top of that, Texas is still hanging on to the wild card race, four games behind Boston. Let the spoiling begin!

Links

• Probable pitchers
• Rangers stats
• Results for GOG #46 are posted. Because if I'm going to blow off my thesis and fail to graduate, then I might as well keep up with the GOG grading!

GOG #47 :: Ruin the Rangers! (32 points possible)

Three game series @ Texas Rangers -- September 14-16

UPDATE -- answers added below in bold

1. Series outcome [3 points] 3-0 Oakland!!
2. In Scott Feldman, have the Rangers finally found a pitcher who can succeed in Arlington? The traditional (read: crappy) metrics say yes -- he has gone 16-4 with a 3.10 ERA in 26 starts this season. The more advanced metrics are not really convinced. Only 5.22 K/9 is pretty bad, especially when your BB/9 is a non-spectacular 2.97. The things he has going for him are a decent ground ball rate, leading to a low but maybe not too fluky HR/9 of 0.82, and a BABIP of .266, which means that he probably owes a lot of his success to the Rangers improved infield. Predict Feldman's IP, ER, and groundball outs for the series [2 points each] 6.1 IP, 6 ER, 9 groundball outs
3. Cliff Pennington is riding a hot streak to respectability (after the last four years, did you ever think you would see an Oakland shortstop with an OBP near .350?!?). Predict his PA/H/BB for the series [2 points each] 13 PA, 5 H, 0 BB
4. Coming off his best start (err... only good start?), how many innings will Mortensen last? [3 points] the rotation got shuffled around, so Mortensen did not pitch... Edgar Gonzalez got that start instead
5. Since being promoted in early August, Julio Borbon has been swinging a very hot bat, with a line of .333/.389/.494. Even though he's a fast guy who puts the ball on the ground, it's pretty unlikely that he can maintain that .386 BABIP (or an ISO of .161, which is practically double his career minor league number). He can really steal a base though. How many SB for Borbon in the series? Does he get caught stealing? [3 points for the first question, +-1 for the second] 0 SB, no CS
6. You all probably remember Neftali Feliz's major league debut against the A's on August 3. He came in to relieve Dustin Nippert at the start of the 6th inning and proceeded to strike out Kennedy, Suzuki, Hairston, and Cust for his first four outs, en route to pitching two perfect innings. He didn't fare quite as well two days later, giving up a two-run HR to Adam Kennedy (only one run charged to Feliz, since he inherited a runner), but he still managed to get a couple more Ks (Suzuki and Harston again). How many strikeouts for Feliz in this series? [3 points] Feliz pitched just one inning and recorded 3 more strikeouts... but he also allowed 2 hits, 2 walks, and was charged with 2 ER
7. RoY face-off!! Who contributes more Win Probability Added, Andrus or Bailey? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] Bailey wins, +.045 to -.032
8. We can hope that Blevins has returned to his 2008 form, instead of the lousy pitching we saw early in the season. The numbers since his call up are great -- 6 K, 0 BB, and 1 ER in 6.1 IP. But let's be realistic, he has come into just six games, against the Royals, White Sox, and Twins. Facing the Rangers in Arlington might be a tougher test for Jerry. Predict Blevins' IP and ER against the Rangers [2 points each] 0.1 IP, 0 ER
9. Does Eric Munson see any playing time? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] no
10. Will any of the games be decided by only 1 run? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] no

Game one kicks off at 5:05 pacific. Make sure you post your guesses before then...

Results

Well that was a very satisfying series. Now let's see if we all got satisfying GOG scores.

Overall scoring statistics

• mean = 5.66667 points
• standard deviation = 2.39792 points
• mode = 4 points

via cfcp.uchicago.edu

Your Scores

And the winners for GOG #47 are... streetfan and easyraider! zaniac75 has pulled to within 6 points of nevermoor (who announced his return below), so we might have a tight race down the stretch for the last few series out the year!