Apparently Dr. Morneau has decided that he will only conducted his wicked experiments on the Oakland Athletics. The guy continues to torment our green and gold.
Esteban Loaiza had his second straight subpar outing and with the drop in his velocity, I wouldn't be surprised to see him hit the DL somewhere in the near future. That's purely speculation, but pitchers don't lose 5-7 mph off their fastball without some kind of problem. Although he could be experiencing the dreaded "dead arm" that made Keith Foulke readily available to the A's in a trade several seasons ago. Still, there's no question that Loaiza has been the weak link in the rotation so far.
The A's try to avoid a sweep bright and early tomorrow morning by sending Joe Blanton to the hill. If he can stop the bleeding, he could quickly establish himself as the early season A's stopper.
But how about Nick Swisher? A lot of folks had their doubts about Swish coming into the season with good reason. He'd had some rough at-bats last year. But I've been telling people for a while he's still feeling his way around. He has a lot of power and he'll give you better at bats than you've seen. I saw him a lot at Sacramento and he's a good patient hitter. His only problem is that he sometimes gets overly eager in tight spots. That and the whole batting right handed thing...
Regardless, this is a disappointing loss on top of yesterday because the A's had the lead in both games. 4-0 and 3-0. The starting staff is supposed to be able to hang onto leads like that. Of course, the rotation is turning back to the three pitchers who allowed only eight hits in three games to the Mariners, so hopefully this turns around quickly.
