Thank You Ron Gardenhire
The A’s won game one and I must say the Twins played right into the hands of the winners.
Barry Zito was masterful with help from Minnesota hitters that didn’t get the message: you want to get Zito’s pitch count up..don’t swing early in the count with Zito.
Ron Gardenhire helped too.
Click below for more!Thanks for sending Luis Castillo on a steal attempt with Zito struggling in the first inning. In case you haven’t noticed Jason Kendall throws runners out regularly this year. Kendall guns Castillo out easily.
Zito breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to throw four plus no hit innings.
Frank Thomas: Thanks for pitching to him with no one on base. Thomas is the most dangerous long ball hitter on the A’s. Eric Chavez can’t catch up with good pitches. Chavez hits behind Thomas. Why pitch to Frank when you don’t have to?
Santana did and the A’s went up 1-0 on a long Thomas homer.
You could sense the A’s gaining confidence on that one swing of the bat.
Thanks Ron for not bunting in the eighth inning with the tying run on second and none out with Luis Castillo up. Tying the game up there would have sent the crowd into orbit. Castillo fouled off one bunt attempt and then grounded out to THIRD, no one could advance on that play.
Zito gets out of the inning and the A’s hand it off to Street in the ninth.
But there’s more!
Inning ended and the score was still 2-1.
Now the beauty. Thanks Ron again. Jesse Crain and his straight fastball versus Frank Thomas ninth inning no one on base. Inside pitch not far in enough BOOM home run 3-1 A’s.
Does anyone in Minnesota subscribe to DirecTV and the MLB package. Has anyone seen the A’s play. Has anyone looked to see what Thomas has done this season? He’s locked in. Big insurance run. Game essentially over on that foolish pitch.
Meaningless triple over Bradley’s perplexed head in the ninth and the A’s win game one 3-2 and take control of the series.
Thanks Ron Gardenhire for a most enjoyable morning.
0 comments
for promptly posting the pregame show
-John
Marty: Angels fan here. Thanks for all your hard work. All of us that follow this game closely really appreciate your hard work and excellent insight. I work overseas and cannot get much sports talk radio, so your downloads of the talk show are a great service. I hope the A’s can win it all this year. Your prediction at the beggining of the year was right on – Angels had too many “what ifs” (catcher, first base, 3rd base, etc.)
Acquiring Frank Thomas and Milton Bradley has completely changed the chemistry on the A’s. These two dynamic leaders–who certainly have different styles than each other–do not like to lose, and play the game with a passion that hasn’t been seen in Oakland in a long time–at least since Miggy left–and which may surprise the baseball world when this whole thing is over, as it has surprised me.
Even though I have written glowingly about both of them, I didn’t have a clue about their value until they came over to the A’s. I had been taken in by a lot of the “cancer” garbage that we heard in reference to these two.
Esteban Loaiza can complete the Beane trifecta tomorrow, but, regardless of tomorrow’s outcome, the effect of Thomas and Bradley is inarguable.
It may be true that the Twins’ hitters were aggressive, but it seemed as much as anything due to Barry having his control and being able to locate his fastball (with greater velocity, 87, even 88 a few times) and get his breaking ball over consistently (which seemed to have two distinct arm angles today, one his usual three quarter and another one I don’t recall seeing from him before, a straight over-the-top like Duke’s, or Joe Blanton, when he is throwing well).
I think something has happened to Street that happened to Frankie Rodriguez, something which KRod overcame. Hitters are realizing that Street has two ptiches he relies on in game situations, his slider and his fastball. They now know that he throws the slider off the plate trying to get them to chase. So, they lay off it and sit on his fairly ordinary fastball. Three of the four balls, including the one Bradley lost in the roof, and the hard liner to Milton and the sharp grounder to Ellis, were tagged. He is getting hit hard regularly. He will probably make the adjsutment, but not right now in the middle of his first post-season.
I think Macha needs to flip Street and Duchscherer
for the duration of the playoffs. Otherwise, Street is going to lose a critical game or two.
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