Well, that’s the last time I make fun of a player’s last name. So sorry, Salty. A thousand apologies. I kind of wish you hadn’t gotten that hit to spite me, but then again, would it have mattered? (And yes, you look every bit as good as they say.) Have you ever seen a worse performance from a team’s 3/4/5 hitters with the bases loaded and zero outs? Is there a worse team in baseball at hitting in that situation? Is there a worse team in the history of baseball in that situation?
Not to be dramatic, but are you kidding me?! How many times do we have to suffer through what looks like a promising start to an inning? Other teams get the bases loaded and score four. Ours manages to find every possible way to score zero. Yet other times (mostly when there is no one on base and they are down multiple runs), they score just as if they don’t have any trouble.
Insert your favorite emotion here: anger, frustration, despair, illness, disappointment, disgust, annoyance.
To add insult to injury in the game today, apparently our pitchers thought ‘shutdown inning’ meant ‘give up a whole bunch of runs...and fast’.
I guess if you’re looking for fairy tales and unicorns, Donnie Murphy, who hasn’t been trained in the ways of the RISP-y-less A’s, managed a couple of hits (including a 2-out RBI double), as did Suzuki, and Ellis (who nearly hit for the cycle). The Texas announcers could not rave enough about Ellis, and it’s well-deserved. Hidden in all the mess is the pretty-good-for-a-second-baseman year that Ellis is having. Watch him win the gold glove this year instead, to add some irony to injury. I wouldn’t put anything past this crazy year.
The A's scored first, but Gaudin got himself in trouble in the 4th by putting the first two runners on, and where a DP was his savior earlier in the game, he got the exact opposite result on the next pitch. Three runs scored in the blink of an eye, and every time the A's scored, the Rangers just came back.
Despite apparently shaving between innings, Nick Swisher still managed only one hit, but did earn the almost-creepy attention of the Texas announcers, who seemed far more interested in the A’s players than the baseball game. To be honest, I wasn’t especially interested in either as the game wore on.
Truthfully, I’m running out of creative ways of saying, "The pitching sucked, and the offense can’t hit with the bases loaded and no one out."
Barry Bonds just hit it. The game was stopped and Hank Aaron had a special taped message for him on the screen. Awesome moment.
