Bad news first: Josh Reddick had to be pulled from the game in the fifth inning after slamming his arm into the wall going after a foul ball. As of right now we don’t have any idea how serious the injury is, but thankfully, if he needs to be out for an extended period of time, there is plenty of outfield depth on the team.

Anyway, the A’s beat the Astros by a final score of 9-3. The good news of the game is that, they are beating a team they should be beating. More good news for the A’s; after taking a ball off of his hand in the second inning, Brett Anderson stayed in the game and pitched a pretty decent game. The only trouble Anderson really came across was in the sixth, when he allowed two singles and a walk to load the bases with no outs. He was able to get the first two outs via strikeout, but a throwing error by Jed Lowrie allowed two runs to cross the plate.  Pat Neshek relieved Anderson in the seventh and pitched one plus innings, allowing a triple and two walks while striking out two before being relieved by Jerry Blevins in the eighth. Jerry Blevins retired all three batters he faced, but allowed the runner at third to cross home on an RBI ground out. Evan Scribner pitched the ninth, also retiring all three batters he faced.

The A’s collected eleven hits today, and thanks to two doubles, three home runs and six walks, the A’s won this game easily. The biggest hit of the game was probably Chris Young’s 3-run home run in the fifth, which put the A’s up 8-0.  After seeing the first two games of the season, it’s nice to see the A’s bats come alive. The series against the Angels should be an interesting one and I am curious to see how the offense plays out this week.

Lines of the Day:

• Brett Anderson pitched six innings, allowed five hits, two unearned runs, walked two and struck out ten. This start was similar to his first start, just a couple less walks and a few more strikeouts. I don’t think we will be seeing many 10 plus strikeout games for Anderson this year, but I could be wrong.
• Jed Lowrie had another multi-hit game going 3-5 with a home run, a double and a single while driving in two runs. He now has three home runs on the season and five doubles.
• Coco Crisp also had another multi-hit day, going 2-4 with a home run, a double and a walk. He now has three home runs in his last three games and is 10-30 on the season with three walks.
• Brandon Moss quietly had a nice day going 2-3 with two walks and one RBI.

Ugly Lines of the Day:

• Josh Donaldson went 0-4 today with one strikeout. He is now 3-25 on the season with one walk and four strikeouts.
• Eric Sogard was also hitless today, going 0-3 with a HBP. He has struggled a bit at the plate himself this season, starting off the first week going 3-19 with with one walk and three strikeouts.

With the first week of the season over, it’s still really too early to be worried about anyone. Well, besides Josh Reddick who may have a broken arm. I am not worried about Yoenis Cespedes not hitting because it’s April 7th. I am not worried about Josh Donaldson or Eric Sogard for the same reason.

Update: Per the team, Josh Reddick’s X-rays were negative and he is listed as day-to-day with a sprained wrist. Big sigh of relief from everyone.

The A’s won today’s game, splitting the series with the Seattle Mariners. I missed recapping the first three games, but I had a couple of quick things to say after watching the first four games of the season.

The Good:

• Jed Lowrie had a good series, starting at shortstop in all four games and going 6-13 with four doubles, a home run, three RBI and two walks. It’s a very small sample size, but it’s nice to see him hitting already.
• Yoenis Cespedes has three hits this season in sixteen at-bats, which isn’t necessarily “good”, but two of his three hits are home runs.
• Chris Resop, who did not allow a run over nine innings this spring, has made two relief appearances so far. He has pitched two innings, allowed one hit, no runs, no walks and has struck out three. Again, another small sample size, but I said in the offseason he could play a big role in the A’s bullpen and I still still stand by that statement.
• Three of the four starting pitchers had pretty decent outings in their first appearances. I was most impressed with Tom Milone (who was mostly successful at home last season), who went seven innings while only allowing four hits and two runs, while walking one and striking out four. Brett Anderson didn’t have a bad outing himself, despite taking the loss on Monday. Anderson only allowed four hits and two runs over seven innings, he struck out six, but walked four.
• Nate Freiman made his Major League debut yesterday and went 2-3 with an RBI. He also had one plate appearance today and drove in a run on a sacrifice fly.

The Bad:

• The first two games were hard to watch, as the team only combined for six hits, one run and four walks over eighteen innings. I guess it really doesn’t matter that much since the offense really picked up in the following two games, but it was definitely ugly.
• Jarrod Parker had a pretty poor first outing for the A’s, allowing five hits, four runs and three walks over five innings while only striking out one. It’s only one game and there is absolutely no reason to panic, but it definitely falls under the “bad” category.
• Ryan Cook’s pitching performance in game two was probably one of my least favorite parts of the series. In his first appearance of the season he allowed one hit, three walks and one earned run over two-thirds of an inning. He did, however, pitch one clean inning today and struck out the side.
• Josh Donaldson and Brandon Moss have both only combined for two hits in twenty-four at-bats, they have three strike outs a piece and neither has taken a walk.

I’ve said it twice already and I will say it again, these are very small sample sizes so it’s hard for me to really get excited (or worried) about certain players yet. Overall though, I am pretty satisfied with how the season has gone so far. I would have liked to see the team do more against Hisashi Iwakuma, but splitting the series is much better than losing the series, or even worse, being swept.

I had posted a regular recap, but computers do things like delete posts before they can be published. So here’s the short version of today’s game:

The A’s beat the Arizona Diamondbacks by the final score of 7-5. They are back at .500 this spring.

Brett Anderson threw 8 pitches today before he was pulled from the game because he strained his trapezius, which is a fancy way of saying upper back. He allowed one hit and was tagged with two runs (one earned) without recording an out. He says he should be okay to make his next scheduled start and he was only taken out for precautionary reasons. Bob Melvin agrees that it’s not too serious.

Mike Ekstrom pitched today after Anderson was pulled. He was responsible for the runs that crossed the plate in the first, but after the wild pitch and hit, he threw two shut out innings without allowing a hit, a walk and struck out two. Sean Doolittle pitched the third inning and retired all three batters he faced, he even struck one out. Bartolo Colon had his best outing of the spring so far; he threw three innings, allowed four hits, one run, walked one and struck out four. Hideki Okajima allowed his first run(s) this spring, he pitched 1.1 innings allowed two hits, two runs, one walk and struck out one.

Jed Lowrie had the biggest day offensively, going 2-3 with a double, a home run (his first of the season) and three RBI. He is 8-21 this spring now, and has two doubles, five RBI and five walks.

Tomorrow the A’s face the San Diego Padres and Jarrod Parker is making his second start of the spring. Former Athletic, Tyson Ross, is starting for the Padres.

The A’s also announced that they optioned pitchers Jesse Chavez and Andrew Werner to Sacramento. They also reassigned Miles Head, Jefry Marte, Addison Russell, Beau Taylor, Ryan Ortiz and Kyler Newby to minor league camp.

A year ago today I did my first Fantasy Baseball post and I recommended that you draft six A’s players for your team. I actually did pretty well, I think, as 4.5 of the players I told you to draft fared pretty well last season.  What I am trying to say here, is if you want to win, you’ll listen to me. (I kid).

If you’re anything like me you probably won’t draft an A’s player in fear of jinxing them (ahem… Jemile Weeks last season), but I know many of you like to get that one (or several) homer pick. This is strictly my personal opinion, and if you listen to me and I tank your season, I’m truly sorry.

Just like last season I am going off of standard leagues and using the following stats: BA, Runs, HR, RBI and SB for offensive categories and Wins, ERA, WHIP, Saves and SO for pitching categories. This is my once a year post where I pretend like batting average is an important stat, so enjoy it while you can:

Yoenis Cespedes: Last season he was a sleeper pick, this season I feel pretty confident about telling you to draft him. He had a .292/.356/.505 slash line and had 23 HR, 82 RBI and stole 16 bases. ZiPS projects a .273/.338/.452 slash line with 23 HR and 84 RBI. I tend to agree that Cespedes will not be a .300 hitter, but I do think if healthy, he could be a 30 HR player.

• What he’s good for: HR, RBI, a few SB

Coco Crisp: I hesitate to put him on here, but for deep leagues he might be worth picking up. Last season Crisp had a .259/.325/.418 slash line with 11 HR, 68 Runs and 39 SB. ZiPS projects a .263/.325/.400 slash line with 8 HR, 63 Runs and 32 SB. He has a history of injuries, so it’s hard to really gauge how his numbers will be, but like I said, he would not be a bad bench player for deep leagues.

• What he’s good for: Runs, SB, the occasional HR

» Continue reading “A’s Baseball: Fantasy Edition II”

I will get the bad news over with first: the A’s lost a game today. Along with everyone else in the Cactus League, the A’s were not able to beat the Kansas City Royals. The Royals scored four runs in the first inning, which turned out enough to defeat the A’s, who only score two runs over nine innings. The final score of the game was 8-2.

Bartolo Colon did not impress in his second spring outing. He allowed seven hits and five runs over only two innings. He threw forty-eight pitches, thirty-two for strikes, did not walk a batter and struck out two. In two appearances this spring he has allowed twelve hits and eight runs over four innings while walking none and striking out six. I still think it’s entirely too early to be in any sort of panic mode with these players, but he has definitely not been enjoyable to watch so far.  Right-handed pitcher, Evan Scribner, also pitched in today’s game and went one inning while allowing two hits, no runs or walks and struck out one. Travis Blackley also pitched two innings; he did not allow a hit or a walk and struck out one. James Simmons was the only other pitcher to allow runs in today’s game, he pitched one inning and allowed four hits and three runs.

The offense wasn’t really there today, as the team only combined for two runs on nine hits and two walks. Grant Green was the only true stand-out player of the game, going 2-4 with two doubles.

• Daric Barton started at first base in this game and went 0-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
• Chris Young started in center field today and went 0-4. He is now 4-16 this spring with no walks and four strikeouts.
• Josh Donaldson played third and went 0-3 with a walk.
• Hiro Nakajima collected another hit today, going 1-3 with a double and strikeout. He is 4-17 with 9 strikeouts this spring.
• Michael Choice played right field and went 1-4 with a strikeout.
• Shane Peterson was in left field and went 2-4 with a strikeout.

» Continue reading “A’s Spring Training Games 11 & 11 1/2: One Loss, One Win”

There really isn’t a lot to say about today’s game. I don’t think the A’s necessarily played terrible today, but they didn’t play well enough (to state the obvious). The A’s lost to the Chicago Cubs today to a final score of 5-3, dropping their spring record to 2-4.

Brett Anderson started today’s game and went two innings, allowed one hit, no runs, walked none and struck out one. Bartolo Colon relieved Anderson in the third inning and was the one pitcher who was hit the hardest today, having allowed five hits and three runs (only one earned) while walking none and striking out four. The two unearned runs were caused by an error by shortstop Hiro Nakajima.

As far as the offense goes, the team combined for nine hits, three walks and went 1-7 with runners in scoring position. Derek Norris hit his second home run of the spring (and second in two days) and Michael Choice hit his second double. Here’s some more stats from today:

• Both Hideki Okajima and Jordan Norberto pitched in today’s game. Okajima pitched one inning, allowed one hit, no runs, walked one and struck out two. Norberto pitched one inning as well, allowed two hits (a single and a double), one earned run, walked none and struck out three.
• Fellow lefty, Pedro Figueroa, also pitched one inning today, allowed two hits, one run and walked one.
• Hiro Nakajima started at shortstop today and went 1-3 with one strike out. Nakajima is 2-10 this spring with six strikeouts and one walk.
• Josh Reddick started in right field today and went 0-2 with a walk.
• Josh Donaldson started at third base today and went 0-3 with a strike out. Donaldson is 1-10 this spring with no walks and four strikeouts.
• Michael Choice continued his hot streak this spring, going 2-4 with a double and an RBI. He is now 7-14 with two doubles, one home run and five RBI.

In other A’s news, Bob Melvin announced that Brett Anderson was named the Opening Day starter earlier today. Anderson returned from Tommy John surgery last August and went 4-2 over six starts. In 35 innings he had a 2.57 ERA, 2.72 FIP, .272 BABIP and a 1 fWAR. There was really no question, as far as I am concerned, that he would get the Opening Day nod, so it’s no big surprise. The rest of the rotation will be; Jarrod Parker, Tommy Milone, A.J. Griffin and Dan Straily until Bartolo Colon returns from his suspension.

Tomorrow the A’s face the San Francisco Giants, Jarrod Parker will be the starter and will be making his spring debut. Along with Parker, Jerry Blevins, Ryan Cook and Sean Doolittle will also be pitching for the first time this spring.

Athletics:  2  Tigers:  0

The last time Brett Anderson took the mound for the A’s was on September 19, also against the Tigers.  Tonight Anderson did not look like a pitcher who hasn’t pitched in a Major League game in almost 3 weeks.  He only needed eight pitches in the first inning, striking out Austin Jackson and Omar Infante and then getting Miguel Cabrera to ground out on just one pitch. He allowed only two hits over six innings, both coming in the second inning.  It would have been three hits, but thanks to a play by Coco Crisp, he was able to rob Prince Fielder of a home run to lead off the inning. He also matched his hits with two walks and struck out six. He was a little erratic today, throwing 80 pitches and only 45 for strikes.

The A’s offense was almost as equally as quiet as the Tigers, but the two runs they scored was more than enough for a win. They looked like they might do a lot against Anabel Sanchez in the first inning, Coco Crisp singled to lead off the inning, Stephen Drew walked and Yoenis Cespedes singled, scoring Crisp.  Brandon Moss struck out looking to record the first out of the inning and Josh Reddick grounded out into a double play to end the inning. The only other run the A’s scored was in the fifth, off of a solo home run by Seth Smith.

The team combined for only five hits and two runs, all coming off of Anibal Sanchez.  They walked three times and struck out only four times.

Ryan Cook came in relief for Anderson in the seventh inning, he allowed a two out single, but got Andy Dirks to fly out to end the inning.  Sean Doolittle came in to pitch the eighth, striking out all three batters he faced (Avisail Garcia, Gerald Laird and Austin Jackson).  Grant Balfour closed the game, recording his first save of the post season, he lead off the inning striking out Omar Infante, allowed a single to Miguel Cabrera, but then on a 1-2 pitch he got Prince Fielder to ground out in to a double play to end the game.

Tomorrow the A’s look to A.J. Griffin to keep their playoff hopes alive, he faced the Tigers once this season and allowed eight hits, five runs over 4.2 innings, walked one and struck out three.

If you missed the first half of the day you can see it here.

The second half of the day we got to talk with Farhan Zaidi (the A’s director of baseball operations).

The first question asked was one that most fans have wondered, what does the future look like for former first round draft pick Grant Green?

“The reason we drafted Grant and one of the reasons we still feel great about him is a prospect of his hitting ability.  I mean you have guys, as somebody that does a lot of our analysis, I know you look a lot at how a guy’s minor league stats translate to the major league level, major league equivalence, which you guys are all familiar with and I’m sure. You know there are some guys who talent kind of just exceeds or projects past what you get on those MLEs.  If you look at what Grand did in Triple-A this year versus what he did in Double-A, he cut his strikeouts down a lot, his numbers were up accross the board and I think that was more in line from what, more in line which what we were expecting out of him then what we saw out of him in last year’s Double-A.  So you know he can hit and we are just trying to figure out defensively A. Where he would be an asset to the team and B. How to fit him into our needs. 

There’s sort of two different levels of prospects, there’s guys in A-ball and below where you just want them to be where they’re most comfortable or where their value is maximized and then you have guys that are in Double-A, Triple-A when you really have to start looking at your big league depth chart and say “where is this guy going to play from?”. And you know with Grant, we’re sort of trying to answer the latter set of questions.  I mean it’s becoming more immediate and he’s the guy that can go to camp with us next year and have the chance to make the team so right now I couldn’t tell you what position he is going to play or how he fits in, but the fact that he’s moved around this year has really given us a lot of options, which is always a good thing.”

When asked about whether or not it was a strategy to pick up former top prospects:

“I wouldn’t say it’s a strategy with guys like that. When there’s a guy that we liked at some point, whatever that point was, we try to evaluate why we like them, how they might look different now and how they might do with a big league opportunity if they got it.”

Regarding Brandon Moss he goes on to say:

“Then he came in to big league camp and was and was our best hitter and we started saying this may just be a case where something just clicks with guy.  That’s sort of where, as an analyst, you sort of have to throw whatever 2012 projections you have made for Brandon Moss out the window because guys do change, something clicks for the guys.  At that point you sort of need to update your priors about a guy, there’s no one formula for how to do that.

» Continue reading “A’s Blog Day: Part II”

This season I was lucky enough to represent Aerys Sports at A’s Blog Day.  Myself and 10 (or so) other A’s bloggers got to sit down with with Bob Melvin, Farhan Zaidi, A.J. Griffin and Brett Anderson in a “blogger” press conference.

The interviews began around 4:00 when Bob Melvin entered the room for the first interview of the day. Bob Melvin was my favorite of the three, he was very professional and treated each question as if we were the media.  I, unfortunately, did not get in my question for him, but there were plenty of other great questions for Melvin.  (I actually didn’t get any questions in that day). Ultimately, I found the question answered regarding Jemile Weeks to be the most interesting from Melvin:

“As far as Jemile, you know I think it’s not unlike, you talk about Sophmore slumps and so forth and you know he’s a tough kid who can be hard on himself, but I think he just got into a little bit of a slump where he couldn’t quite get out of it.  You know you look up there and you have some pride and you look at your average after hitting .300 for basically a full season and then not being able to repeat that, you try a little bit too hard some times as opposed to trying a little easier and letting your ability take over and I think it was just a little bit of change of scenery he went down there and instantly hit and I don’t think this is going to affect where his career is going forward.”

And regarding any adjustments Weeks needs to make:

“I think maybe just keep the ball out of the air a little bit.  I mean this year he probably… I think he hit a couple of home runs early on and he will tell you that that has nothing to do with, you know, swinging a little bigger.  I think he just felt more comfortable with his swing and that he can drive some balls and last year he just wasn’t trying to do too much, he was just putting it in play, putting it in play on the ground and so it’s a matter of finding a happy medium for him and he will do that.”

The question I had for Melvin was regarding the difference between working with veterans and rookies and Frank from The Bay Area Sports Report asked him a similar question in which Melvin had this to say:

“Well I think, you know,  based where we are in the season we try to keep the distractions to a minimum and just, I know it’s very cliche, but keep it to all our efforts and focus on a particular day.  I think we are playing some match ups in the second half, you know whether it’s a Moss/Carter type of thing. And I think keeping them aware of when they’re playing is important so they know and can visualize and do some homework on some potential pitchers that they’re going to face.  You know, whether it’s Kottaras and Norris and we’ve run a little platoon Pennington/Rosales at second, so I think they benefit by knowing which and what days they’re playing.  And then I think with younger players you try to be consistent in giving them good feedback. Because you know one thing about being a younger player coming to the big league level that you always have to get over is that ‘awe factor’ and ‘do I belong here in the big leagues?’.  And we’ve not only as an organization put a lot of stock in our younger players and getting them to the big leagues, we put them in prominent roles and I think we have done that across the board this year, whether it’s the pitching end of it, whether it’s position player end of it and we’ve been rewarded with good performances.”

» Continue reading “Oakland A’s 2012 Blog Day: Part 1″

Athletics: 12  Tigers: 4

The A’s avoided the sweep today by doing the exact opposite of what they had in their previous three games.  They hit with runners in scoring position and despite Tom Milone being pulled from the game in the fifth, the bullpen pitched well enough to keep Oakland in the game.

Tom Milone was less than sharp today, throwing 94 pitches through 4.2 innings.  He got Austin Jackson to strike out to start the bottom half of the first, but with only one out he loaded the bases with a double and two walks.  Delmon Young swung at the first pitch he saw, grounding out into a double play and ending the threat.

He was not so lucky in the second inning, allowing back-to-back singles to lead off the inning and a sacrifice bunt that would move the runners over to second and third.  Then with two on and one out Gerald Laird hit an RBI single scoring the first run of the game.  He record the second out of the inning by getting Austin Jackson to fly out, but a second run scored on the sacrifice.  Omar Infante walked, but Miguel Cabrera flew out to end the inning.

The A’s cut the Tigers lead in half in the third, scoring on a throwing error by Omar Infante. The Tigers would stay quiet in the third and the fourth, allowing the A’s to tie it up in the fifth inning off of a solo home run by Seth Smith. The Tigers retook the lead in the fifth inning off of an RBI double by Prince Fielder.  Milone recorded the second out of the inning before being replaced by Pat Neshek who recorded the last out by getting Avilsail Garcia to pop out.

The sixth inning was huge for the A’s, who scored four runs off of an RBI double by Brandon Moss and a 3-run double by George Kottaras.  Jerry Blevins replaced Neshek in bottom half of the sixth and after allowing a lead off home run to Andy Dirks he got Gerald Laird to fly out.  Ryan Cook came in to replace Blevins, getting the last two batters to fly out. Cook pitched the seventh inning as well, setting down the batters in order and striking out two of the three he faced.  Sean Doolittle pitched a clean eighth inning, also striking out two of the three he faced.

The A’s needed insurance runs and that’s exactly what they got in the ninth, scoring six runs and putting them up by eight. Cliff Pennington and George Kottaras lead off the inning with two singles and Stephen Drew grounded out moving the runners to second and third.  The Tigers then intentionally walked Josh Reddick to get to Yoenis Cespedes, who hit a sacrafice fly.  Then with two outs and Kottaras and Reddick on first and third Brandon Moss was intentionally walked to get to Daric Barton.  Barton walked and Kottaras scored and the A’s were up by four. Seth Smith would follow with a bases clearing double and he scored after Josh Donaldson doubled him in.  George Kottaras, who lead off the inning with a single, grounded out to end the inning.

Evan Scribner pitched the ninth inning, he allowed a double to Omar Infante, but escaped the inning without allowing a run.

Along with good news comes bad news, the A’s have announced that Brett Anderson will miss the rest of the regular season with a right olique strain.  Anderson has expressed that he would like to be ready in the post season if the team makes it.  As I said yesterday, Travis Blackley is expected to take his spot in the rotation.  In 93.2 innings for the A’s this season, Blackley has a 3.65 ERA, a 3.62 FIP and .262 BABIP.