BETWEEN GAME 1 AND GAME 2

The A's got spanked and they deserved said treatment as Barry Zito could not pitch close enough to the strike zone to get the Tigers to hack. And when he did throw strikes he was behind in the count and the Tigers made him pay.

On defense the A's had four miscues - one by Chavez that was graciously called an error and two by Nick Swisher. One of those came on a stray relay throw by D'Angelo Jimenex; a good 1st baseman would have come off the bag and blocked the ball or even knocked it down. Watching the replays over at MLB.com Swisher turned away from the ball.

On offense Kotsay and Chavez got squeakers through the infield for hits but the A's were not patient at the plate at all. When they did pose a threat to Nate Robertson - runners at 2nd and 3rd with nobody out - Robertson struck out Chavez, Swisher and Skootch to slam the door. The A's played A's baseball leaving 9 runners on base and grounding into 3 GIDP.

Jim Leyland outmanaged Macha and Macha made curious use of his bullpen. Kiko Calero does not pitch well in back-to-back games and Joe Kennedy is their LOOGY. Why use them down by 5 runs? Lifting Chad Gaudin was ridiculous. He was efficient and effective. Gaudin might be the A's 5th starter next year.

The A's are resilient. They have many feet. This is good because they continuously shoot themselves in the foot and seem to be able to come back. But you should not be surprised by last night's game. The A's led all of MLB with 170 grounded into double plays (GIDP) - the 5th highest total in MLB since 1939 and broke the Athletics record for GIDP in a season. That included Philadelphia, Kansas City and Oakland. The A's were also next to last in Batting Average (AVG), On Base Percentage (OBP) and Slugging Percentage (SLG) with runners in scoring position. That's just who the A's are.

The best you can hope for with the A's is a solid baseball without a lot of mistakes and hope that someone knocks in a few runs at some point. They won 93 games this year with that formula.