Can A's Get The Ball To Foulke? Kerry Wood Faces Astros
The story of the 2003 season picks up dramatically tonight in Oakland.
Not only is the wild card lead up for grabs between the Red Sox and the A’s, but the teams bring the oldest question in baseball history to the table:
Can good pitching stop good hitting?
The A’s have been on a roll ever since the starters decided to take matters into their own hands and pitch seven or more innings every game.
The key for the A’s is to get the ball to Keith Foulke. How they get it there is the question. If Oakland has to get into the pen in the sixth inning trouble looms, if they get into the pen in the eighth inning, good things happen. The seventh inning becomes the key to success. If Tim Hudson pitches that inning, chances are they will be fine at the Coliseum, if Chad Bradford and Ricardo Rincon need to get five outs, then it becomes dicey.
The A’s face Pedro Martinez who has pitched outstanding games in Oakland, but I seem to remember his leaving the game by the seventh inning. He may be leading 2-1, but he may leave his fate in the hands of the bull pen.
Pedro threw 128, 111, and 128 pitches in his last three starts, let’s see how far they let him go tonight?
The A’s should do what the White Sox did to Rich Harden yesterday, make him work and get his pitch count up, then beat the bull pen.
Click below for more!
Luckily for the A’s Pedro throws from the right side which gives Eric Chavez and Erubiel Durazo a chance to get some good swings. Chavez is not hitting with any authority against lefties even though his average is creeping up slightly from that side.
Alan Embree and Scott Sauerbeck the two lefties in the Boston pen will be key factors in this series. I think the entire Boston pen, with Scott Williamson and Byung Hyun Kim will decide how this series turns out. Boston starters Derek Lowe and John Burkett have given the A’s trouble in the past, but they won’t go past the seventh inning, so the Red Sox will be in their pen every game.
I have Boston 8-12 against lefties on the road. They face Zito, Mulder, and Lilly after tonight. With all the gaudy hitting stats Boston brings in, they are 29-30 away from Fenway, even facing a steady diet of teams below .500.
The A’s offense is in the tank. I still think they take too many 2-0, 3-0 pitches. They don’t score many runs, for once they should let the bats fly when they get up in the count and not look over their shoulder at the coach keeping the stats when they do it.
Jose Guillen has two extra base hits since joining Oakland in 40 at bats. He seems better suited as a number six hitter where he can sneak up on people. No doubt he will swing the bat, I think he will be more successful in a spot where pitchers generally let up a little more than when they face the number two hitter in the lineup.
Guillen isn’t getting a steady diet of fastballs in the two hole because the three- four hitters are hitting .255 to .270 and can be pitched to more confidently than a typical three hitter who is hitting .320.
The Red Sox may catch the Yankees because the Yankees still can’t find a bull pen.
Once Felix Rodriguez is healthy I say he goes to NY as the next set up man for Mariano Rivera. Antonio Osuna sent the fans home unhappy yesterday once he got into the game, further adding to his legend as the man who turns victory into defeat “As soona you bring him into the game”.
Once I saw Rafael Soriano pitch here in July I rrealized he should be the set up man for Seattle. Now the righty seems to have the role, lowering his ERA to 1.42 with 1 1/3 innings of tough relief in the Stadium Sunday.
Joel Pineiro tries to rebound from one of his worst outings of the year in his last start facing the Blue Jays tonight in the first of four between these teams.
Mark Hendrickson who played basketball at Washington State goes for Toronto. Should be interesting to see how much Toronto has left in the tank since its playoff hopes have disappeared along with its pitching other than when Roy Halladay throws.
The Cubs got another fabulous start from Mark Prior Sunday. Now the Cubs get Houston at home and look to Kerry Wood to get them off on the right foot in this series when he faces Wade Miller.
Sammy Sosa is one of the few players capable of carrying his team into October and he is hot right now. Jimy Williams knows it and I can’t believe he will pitch to him.
Some Hall of Famer Rafael Palmiero is. He turned down a chance to join the Cubs for the stretch run. Plus he took three days to make up his mind, weak, very weak stuff.
Albert Pujols got John Smoltz Sunday night, if that doesn’t tell you how valuable Pujols is, than you aren’t up on the game.
Jeremy Affeldt is pitching quite well for KC out of the pen, it doesn’t affect his blister problems and he gets people out with his power stuff.
Bartolo Colon tonight in Anaheim against the Angels who now lead Texas by three.
Esteban Loiaza solidified his Cy Young credentials with a solid game Sunday against the A’s.
When St. Louis got Lou Brock in 1964 from the Cubs, they took off and eventually won the NL pennant when the Phillies collapsed during the last two weeks of the season. I get the same feeling from Shannon Stewart and the way he has played for Minnesota since he came over from Toronto for Bobby Kielty. The Twins are stalking the leaders in the AL Central and it all started when Stewart came over and became Minnesota’s lead off man.
KC turns to Paul Abbott tonight against New York and David Wells. At least Mike Sweeney is back for the Royals.
Here’s the good news for the Marlins, Dontrelle Willis tonight at home versus the Dodgers and no Dolphin game to comptete with for the fans attention, so they can all come out and watch the “D” Train pitch.
The Devil Rays and the Orioles hit the Boston pitching staff, the same two teams can’t touch the A’s pitchers, if you follow this logic maybe there is some hope for the A’s hitters this week.
When Jose Cruz and Marquis Grissom leave the Giants lineup with injuries then I’ll worry about SF, these two guys, along with Barry Bonds have been sensational.
Jason Schmidt should rest his elbow until further notice. October is still six weeks away and that is the next time the Giants will need him.
Can Kyle Lohse throw three good games in a row? Jake Westbrook and Cleveland are the opposition, so maybe tonight will be a good one for the Twins righty.
All right, Ted Lilly goes into the fifth, Rich Harden is gone after five, do that a few more times back to back and someone around Oakland will get nervous.
I’d start scanning the waiver wire right now for another veteran starter.
Beautiful weather tonight, two excellent teams, two pitchers that can go deep into the game, two of the best in baseball this season, so will the game be decided with Kim facing Durazo or will it be Foulke facing Manny Ramirez, however it turns out it, is baseball at its best in August.
And it’s only game one.
0 comments
great analysis,as usual,Dr.Marty. (Doctor of Baseball). Both the A’s and the Red Sox had chances to gain ground but couldn’t. The Baltimore Bashers took it the the Red Sox and took 3 out of 4 and are just under the .500 mark. The A’s lost
2 out 3 to the White Sox that looks like a contender for the Central. With the loss to the Tigers the A’s kept pace losing 3 out of 4.
The wild card will be one of the 4. Yankees, Mariners, A’s or Red Sox. Three of the 4 will make the playoffs. The odd man out has yet to be determined. It’s too bad that the game starts at 10 pm East Coast time beacause tonight will be , as Vin Sclully wuld say, a dandy.
and a lot of people on the East coast won’t be
able to stay up and watch.
Jerry F
As a former Bostonian, I can relate to the current team.Back in the late 40’s and 50’s the Red Sox used to tailor their teams to Fenway Park. This meant they did real well at home and played poorly on the road. Many players , especially the right hand batters, developed upper cut swings to get the ball over the green monster which is 37 feet high. As a result,they took their bad habits on the road and had problems. There also was another adage in baseball that if you are going to win,it was imperative that you play at least .500 ball on
the road and play well at home. The Red Sox have done that this year. Time will tell if they
will succeed this year but all Red Sox fans live on hope.
Jerry F
As another transplanted Boston boy who’s heart will always bleed Red, (Sox), I agree with you Jerry. Remember how hard it was to stay up for those west coast trips when we had work, (or even school) the next day. Even now, living in the Pacific Time Zone I still find myself nodding in the 7th only to find out after my cat nap that it’s the 8th.
I can’t even get the game on T.V. so I’ll be forced to listen to it on the MLB.com feed. Although truth be told, “watching†a ballgame on radio is still a very close second to watching one on a television.
Some of the best games I ever saw were heard on a transistor radio. And not just the Sox. I’ll always remember waiting till it got dark so I could dial in to far away places that I only knew existed because they happened to have a major league team there. I’ll always remember the three W, E that carried the Indians games, (WWWE). And WBAL for the Orioles. WABC for the hated Yankees. And every now and then if the wind was blowing right or for other reasons unknown, like minimal solar flare activity or the blanket I was hiding under, so my parents wouldn’t catch me, wasn’t made of the wrong fabric, I could get the Detroit Tiger games. And once, somehow, I hit the lottery, and picked up a St. Louis Cardinal game.
I’ll always remember driving through New York state in the summer of ‘67 with my dad in his Olds after seeing Cooperstown, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Doubleday Field. It was one of those moments that as a kid we take with us forever. A moment like it happened yesterday. It couldn’t get any better, could it? The Sox were playing a Sunday double header, (remember those?), in Detroit. In my education with my trusty transistor radio I just happened to know the dial number and I tested that Oldsmobile car radio. I can’t remember how much of each game we picked up through all those trees on the turnpike but I remember that Gates Brown won both those games for the Tigers, single handed.
Despite Brown’s efforts that year I’ll always….ALWAYS remember where I was when I found out that the Red Sox had just won the American League pennant and pulled off the “Impossible Dreamâ€. I heard it on radio and my life would never be the same from that day on.
I saw Lonborg’s one hitter in game 2 of that great world series against the Cards. I saw Yaz hit his homer into the bleachers and if it wasn’t for Bob Gibson , (the greatest pitcher I ever saw), the Sox would have won that championship that year. ……oh well that’s just part of being a Sox fan. There’s always next year.
But the absolute best way to really see a game is where Marty is going to be tonight. Nothing compares to that. Enjoy it Marty…I know you will.
As a Sox fan that game last night was ugly. (even on radio)
Just hearing the difference in clicks of bat meeting ball told me how well the A’s handled Pedro compared to the way Hudson handled the Sox offense. The crowd sounded so alive and you could just feel the energy.
A couple observations via radio:
I’ve listened to the Sox feed all year and for a team that always puts quality on the field their broadcast team is minor league at best, (and I‘m talking AA here). They go on and on about things tof little interest and start screaming constantly about routine plays that I suppose they are trying to make exciting, (until you find out that “deep†fly ball was caught in medium center field.
I switched over to the A’s broadcast. They painted a constant accurate, entertaining, and informative picture. I kept wondering how the ball was breaking for both pitchers or what speed it was coming in at. Not once did the Sox announcers mention this. After switching over I found the A’s broadcasters giving a constant description. They were impartial and concise. Very well done.
Props to them.
Also is it true the A’s are 52-15, (after last night), in the month of August since 2001?
In the words of a old Red Sox announcer ….â€Mercyâ€!
Mark
As a Sox fan that game last night was ugly. (even on radio)
Just hearing the difference in clicks of bat meeting ball told me how well the A’s handled Pedro compared to the way Hudson handled the Sox offense. The crowd sounded so alive and you could just feel the energy.
A couple observations via radio:
I’ve listened to the Sox feed all year and for a team that always puts quality on the field their broadcast team is minor league at best, (and I‘m talking AA here). They go on and on about things tof little interest and start screaming constantly about routine plays that I suppose they are trying to make exciting, (until you find out that “deep†fly ball was caught in medium center field.
I switched over to the A’s broadcast. They painted a constant accurate, entertaining, and informative picture. I kept wondering how the ball was breaking for both pitchers or what speed it was coming in at. Not once did the Sox announcers mention this. After switching over I found the A’s broadcasters giving a constant description. They were impartial and concise. Very well done.
Props to them.
Also is it true the A’s are 52-15, (after last night), in the month of August since 2001?
In the words of a old Red Sox announcer ….â€Mercyâ€!
Mark
You must log in to post a comment.