GAME 1 - HAREN vs HERNANDEZ (RECAP)

AND SO IT BEGINS - "THE NEGATIVITY SCENE"


Bob Geren took all of 5 innings before he was second guessed as the Oakland Athletics manager. Look, I am a Bob Geren fan. But he is still the manager of the beloved A's. Therefore, the gloves were off in the Top of the 6th inning Monday night. Travis Buck, in his second major league At-Bat, smashed a double over the head of Ichiro Suzuki. Ichiro was playing a shallow center most of the night (make a note of that). With Buck at 2nd base, and decent speed for an outfielder, Geren had Mark Ellis square around to bunt. This makes me want to kick Geren and Ellis square in the nuts.



Enough. Enough with the sacrificing already. I understand that we are looking at inning six of at least 1458 innings. Still. One is enough.

ELEPHANTS IN OAKLAND MANTRA

When you sacrifice bunt in order to move a runner up a base to score one run, a high percentage of the time you will score none. If you are going to bunt, squaring around on the first pitch makes absolutely zero sense. Take a pitch. If it is a ball, the odds of reaching base as a hitter on a 1-0 versus a 0-1 count are fantastically, drastically, dogmatically different.



In this scenario; Buck at 2nd base Ellis at the plate against a right-hander, Felix Hernande, has a lot of movement on his pitches. Tactically it's better to take a strike, and open the batter's stance and then try to hit the ball to the right side. Situational hitting. If you can not expect your hitters to control the strike zone, then they should not be in the lineup.



Why not just let Mark Ellis put up a quality At-Bat together and live with those results?



This is NOT singling out Ellis (singling out, punny), however, following the sign given to bunt you can always "miss" the sign or just fail at dropping down the bunt. Remember this stuff because it will come back up. Back to the negative vibe merchant's ranting and/or raving.

I know it's easy to harp on Bobby Crosby because of his poor play. But the blame lies with the A's front office of Billy Beane and David Forst. Really Forst. Beane has largely taken a role as the guy who is more interested in his ownership stake and researching and analyzing soccer. You read me; Billy Beane is out of the office a majority of the time. David Forst is the De Facto General Manager of the Oakland A's.



Back to Crosby.



Crosby is a head case. A stubborn, stubborn player who tries to do too much with the bat and in the field doesn't know how to make the routine play look routine. He carries around an undue sense of entitlement and does not take to being told that he is a pile of weaknesses harnessed within a body of moderate talent. Talent and ability, can they ever meet for Crosby?



Can we come back to this as the Eric Chavez effect?



Determination is one thing, focused play is another. Crosby sternly looks like he is trying to keep coins magically floating in front of him; he's in some sort of inferior professional athlete trance. He looks tight, wound up and yet, out of control.



Crosby is a better fielder that Marco Scutaro. He has more power. But, statistics aside, for now, I trust Skootch more than a player who is more concerned with appearance than performance. That's just me. Most know I have never been a fan of Bobby Crosby. Until he gets on base at a .360 clip and has 25-30 doubles to right field and less than 100 K's in a FULL SEASON...I simply won't be a Crosby fan. Worse, Crosby continues to undercut his trade value.



No, I'm not insane. The A's can't package an oft injured wash-out shortstop. Angel Berroa was another A's product at shortstop who was rookie of the year. Look where he is (AAA - for the Royals). The A's have nothing at AAA to replace Crosby. What they do have is a terrific opportunity for a Mike Bordick-like entry. Mark Ellis goes to his left better than any 2nd baseman in baseball. True, the A's need him to cover up Nick Swisher's inability to play 1st base defense with any consistency, but Ellis was a great shortstop in college. His double play partner happened to be David Eckstein at Florida and at the major league level their roles switched. Bit o' trivia.



Years ago with the A's Mike Bordick subbed at 2nd base and shortstop and eventually took over at shortstop for the A's and then, Cal Ripken, JR in Baltimore. Bordick was a favorite player of mine and still a bone of contention with Tony LaRussa pinch hitting for him in the 1992 ALCS.



Danny Haren was very Danny Haren like in Game 1. Pitched well but once trouble came up it ate him alive. Bobby Crosby didn't help matters when he dropped a sure double play to end an inning. But the responsibility lies with Haren getting outs. Until Crosby's errors Haren was very economical with his pitches. Crosby forced his hand into pitching to at least three extra batters, and cost him an extra inning. Still, Haren threw the pitch that (Richie Sexson) Big Sexy nailed.



It was a bad night of baseball for the A's who made Felix Hernandez look good. Jason Kendall's K rate was up in the spring and it looks like he has added that out making process to his regularity of groundball outs and double plays.



Ugh.



Good stuff was Travis Buck, Milton Bradley and Sean Marshall.