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Sunday, April 17, 2005 |
Games, Games, Games
... following the Elvis Costello CD with a similar name:
A's 7, Angels 6
Recently, Rich Lederer picked Danny Haren to outpitch Mark Mulder ("this year"), which should give you an indication that Beane has lost exactly none of his shrewdness. The hacks and Joe Morgans (okay, one is a superset of the other) of the world have been picking the Angels to clean up in this division since well before the first pitch was thrown, but as this series makes clear,- The Angels have no monopoly on small ball when it counts. Macha has ordered bunts, and the flummoxed Angels (in the guise of Scot Shields) were caught unprepared.
- The A's have vastly improved their bullpen while the Angels' has moderately declined. As I said yesterday, the Angels bullpen with Esteban Yan and Jake Woods in it is a setback from the days when you could count on Percy to close and Frankie to shut down teams in the seventh and eighth. As evidence of this, the Angels' pen ERA is 3.35; the A's, 2.39.
- The A's still have solid starters. Despite unloading Hudson and Mulder -- and perhaps because of it -- the A's have starting pitchers who can give Oakland six solid innings and go toe-to-toe with anybody in the division. One reason for this was the introduction of bullpen stoppers like Huston Street (who we saw today) and Kiko Calero.
As if all that weren't enough, losing Benjie Molina and his .323/.389/.581 line, if temporarily, doesn't help; the plunk that Vlad took, while it won't hurt his playing time, makes me wonder if it's not one of those "comes back to bite ya" problems later on.
Dodgers 6, Padres 0
The Dodgers continue their homerly ways, with Kent and Bradley firing off back-to-back jacks for the second time in two days, sweeping the Padres for the first time in two years. The complete game shutout on 114 pitches paid atonement for Weaver's awful eight earned runs in his April 12 game against the Diamondbacks. Weaver is now officially overpaid at $9.25M for his 2005 efforts, but not if he can continue with more outings like this one.Choi's 1-4 obviously can't continue, but if he even does that well on a consistent basis, it would represent improvement over his current .148 average. Over the last week, he's hit .200, so he is warming up, albeit glacially.
Phillies 2, Braves 1
I just knew Danny Kolb was a mistake. The predictions that the Braves are going to take the division yet again may just be gas this year, at last.
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