By design, Beane's A's rely on outstanding starting pitching, deep bullpens, solid defense, and ... yeah, that's about it.
In any matchup of our #1 or #2 against a solid starter, the A's fortunes will turn -- again, by design -- on essentially random twists of fate. The A's will continue to play a lot of close, low-scoring games, and the outcomes of those games will be, as most close games in large aggregate are, pretty much random.
Such is the rancid consolation of wasting another outstanding start by Icin' Joe Blanton. You win some, you lose some.
One can hardly fault Buck for an initial misstep or a calculated risk to make up for that step. One can't, really, even fault Casilla for finally giving in to a powerful Mets lineup. One can't really fault any specific batter for failing to drive in a run, because the A's offense, such as it is, is predicated on the slow and season-long chilly accretion of baserunners, creeping geologically around the bases to calve off into runs eventually at the water's edge of home plate. The glacier, at any given moment, to any observer, seems to stand still.
Such is the nature of Beane's A's. No individual player is ever at fault. Their anticipated performance levels inexorably realize themselves on the field in an inhuman process subject to the cold laws of probability.
And in any given game, the A's probably won't score many runs.
