Oakland Athletics Game 32 – Saturday, May 9, 2015 @ 6:00 pm
Game Attendance: Away Game
Season Attendance: 291,434
Lowest Attendance: 15,025 (Game 2)
Game Time: 3:36
Season Time: 95:57
Win Record: 12-20
Win Record vs Mariners: 1-4
Streak: L4
AL West Standing: 5th
Elimination Number: 123
Winning Pitcher: J.A. Happ (3-1)
Losing Pitcher: Jesse Hahn (1-3)
Pitchers/Pitch Count: Hahn/102, Castro/21, Bassitt/40, Abad/11, Otero/4
Total Pitches per game: 178
Total Pitches per season: 4610
Game Home Runs: 1
Season Home Runs: 28
Game Runs: 2
Season Runs: 150
Runs Rank: 4th
Run Differential: -2
Differential Rank: 17th
Game RBI Leader: Butler (1), Canha (1)
Season RBI Leader: Vogt (25)
Most RBI’s in Single Game: 5 (27)
Game RISP: 1 for 11
Game LOB: 12
Season RISP: 83 for 286
Season LOB: 220
Game Batting Average: .315
Lineup Batting Average: .260
Total Players Used in Game: 15
Most Players Used in Game: 20 (Game 25)
Challenged Plays: 0
Total Challenged Plays: 8
Total Overturned Plays: 2
Games Won in Extra Innings: 0
Total Games Played in Extra Innings: 4 (6,7,18,25,31)
Special Notes:
At this point it appears that the Oakland Athletics are actually trying to lose and games are becoming very difficult to watch. Whether they’re trapped in their own heads or they’re truly this bad is yet to be seen for certain but it seems unlikely that a team with this much talent will play this poorly for an entire season. But the A’s have always liked dabbling in the unlikely.
Marcus Semien had quite a night, going 3 for 4 with a walk and stealing two bases, but it will all be forgotten by his two errors – on the same play. Semien missed making a clean grab (error 1) and then, in a hurry, bounced the ball off the mound in an attempt to throw home (error 2). In fact, this game was a comedy of errors and the A’s are now averaging a league worst one error per game. On this date in 2014, the Oakland Athletics had the fifth worst error count, averaging .83 errors per game. That’s not to say that things have always been bad with this defense, rather, it’s to say that it is even worse than last year when we were complaining about how bad it was.
Then there is the pitching which has just not dominated in the way we expect from the Oakland Athletics. Jesse Hahn, after this outing, has an ERA inching closer and closer to 5 and is averaging five innings per start in his last five starts. The entire pitching staff walked six batters and hit two putting a total of eight batters on the base path for free. These things happen when a pitching staff is struggling and, sadly, these things simply can’t happen when a pitching staff is struggling. With Seattle fairing 13% better with runners in scoring position than the A’s were last night (22% vs 9%), placing men in scoring position is a universally bad idea.
Twitter, as always, is calling for Beane and Melvin to be fired and, for good measure, Sogard to be sent down. The fact is, none of those things are going to happen. Beane is beloved, Melvin isn’t a magician that can do anything beyond coach his boys out of this mess and Sogard, the player some fans love to hate, has the fifth highest batting average on the team right now (.263) above Lawrie, Butler, Canha, and Fuld.
Recently a new parody account claiming to be Susan Slusser’s inner monologue was created and for the most part it features sardonic quips and snarky responses to bitter fans but last night “she” (who knows for sure) posted a tweet that was actually incredibly poignant.
"This team can't win because of all the trades." Six months later, "why isn't Billy trading guys to fix this?!" Ya'll need a hug.
— Snarky Susan (@SusanCrusher) May 10, 2015
More from Oakland A's News
- Zach Logue yet another disappointing Oakland A’s trade return
- Luis Barrera heading to familiar foe in Los Angeles Angels
- San Francisco Giants showing Oakland A’s offseason could be worse
- Lucas Luetge what Oakland A’s need in bullpen
- Oakland A’s bring Deolis Guerra back on minor league deal
It does seem that the fans that complained most when Beane traded the team away this winter are the ones begging him to make some major moves now. Problem is, who would he trade? It is very unlikely that a major league ball club is knocking at our door asking for relievers. The A’s have the worst bullpen in baseball right now so to get even one top notch reliever, like a
Jim Johnsonor
Grant Balfour, at this point is going to cost the club something big and I’d be reluctant to start messing with the team’s offense, which is quite good, to gamble on a bullpen acquisition. That leaves the question, if we’re not going to make some big trade, how do we fix this? And for that, I have no answer.